Purification of soybean lecithin. 1-Equipment and operating conditions selection. 2-Equilibrium diagrams

In this work we describe the choice of the best operating conditions to produce pure powder soybean lecithin, extracting with acetone, in a bench scale. The equipment was designed in order to obtain adequate impeller and turbine systems response because there is significant viscosity variations between batches, and the extraction process was difficult. By operating in these conditions, we have obtained the equilibrium values for the phospholipids/oil/acetone mixture. The results showed that there are a phospholipids/oil interaction and this might be by solute absorption or because the solute is soluble in the solid and it is no reparting by equal between the equilibrium liquid and solid phases.