Acid-induced demulsification versus alum and polyaluminium chloride coagulation for oil and turbidity removal from concentrated soybean oil-in-water emulsions.
- 1Faculty of Chemistry and Chemical Technology, University of Ljubljana 1000 Ljubljana Slovenia [email protected] [email protected].
- 2Department of Energy & Environment, Thapar Institute of Engineering & Technology Patiala-147004 Punjab India.
- 3Department of Chemical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee 247667 India.
Abstract
This study evaluated the treatment of concentrated soybean oil-in-water emulsions by acid-induced demulsification using hydrochloric acid (HCl) and by coagulation with polyaluminum chloride (PAC) and alum. The impact of chemical dose, pH, and settling time was examined to determine the effectiveness of each process in oil and turbidity removal. Acid treatment reduced turbidity by 97.1% through phase separation at low pH but was not sufficient to bring residual oil below discharge standards. PAC and alum both demonstrated strong pH- and dose-dependent removal behaviors, with optimal performance at pH 7 for PAC and pH 6 for alum. Among the tested systems, the maximum removal of oil and turbidity was observed using optimized alum coagulation in a two-stage process, achieving oil removal up to 82% and turbidity removal of over 96%, which outperformed HCl and PAC, especially for high-strength emulsions. These findings identify alum-based systems as the most effective conventional choice for high-percentage oil and turbidity removal in concentrated soybean oil emulsions.
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BibTeX
@article{kumar2026acidinduced,
title = {{Acid-induced demulsification versus alum and polyaluminium chloride coagulation for oil and turbidity removal from concentrated soybean oil-in-water emulsions.}},
author = {Praveen Kumar and Shilpi Verma and Amit Verma and Vimal Chandra Srivastava},
journal = {RSC advances},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.1039/d6ra05919h},
url = {https://europepmc.org/article/MED/42910214},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Acid-induced demulsification versus alum and polyaluminium chloride coagulation for oil and turbidity removal from concentrated soybean oil-in-water emulsions.
AU - Praveen Kumar
AU - Shilpi Verma
AU - Amit Verma
AU - Vimal Chandra Srivastava
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/21
JO - RSC advances
DO - 10.1039/d6ra05919h
UR - https://europepmc.org/article/MED/42910214
AB - This study evaluated the treatment of concentrated soybean oil-in-water emulsions by acid-induced demulsification using hydrochloric acid (HCl) and by coagulation with polyaluminum chloride (PAC) and alum. The impact of chemical dose, pH, and settling time was examined to determine the effectiveness of each process in oil and turbidity removal. Acid treatment reduced turbidity by 97.1% through phase separation at low pH but was not sufficient to bring residual oil below discharge standards. PAC and alum both demonstrated strong pH- and dose-dependent removal behaviors, with optimal performance at pH 7 for PAC and pH 6 for alum. Among the tested systems, the maximum removal of oil and turbidity was observed using optimized alum coagulation in a two-stage process, achieving oil removal up to 82% and turbidity removal of over 96%, which outperformed HCl and PAC, especially for high-strength emulsions. These findings identify alum-based systems as the most effective conventional choice for high-percentage oil and turbidity removal in concentrated soybean oil emulsions.
SN - 2046-2069
ER -