Authors : T.O. Salawudeen , E.O. Dada and S.O. Alagbe
Abstract: Palm oil bleaching using acid treated clay was investigated. Colorimeter was used to determine the colour in form of absorbance for the crude and refined palm oil. These were used to determine the percentage colour reduction. Effects of acid type, acid concentration and mass of adsorbent using Freudlich adsorption isotherms were studied. Results of the investigation revealed that HCl activated clay has relatively higher bleaching power than H2SO4 activated clay. The increase in acid concentration increases bleaching efficiency. The maximum percentage colour reduction of 94.28% was achieved in HCl activated clay at 45% acid concentration, while 89.46% colour reduction at 35% acid concentration was achieved with H2SO4 activated clay. Further increase in concentration of H2SO4 has no significant effect. The Freudlich adsorption constant n and k values for various clay samples showed that sample E has the highest bleaching power with 94.28% colour reduction, followed by sample A with 85.00% and sample B with 84.82%, samples C and D are not very effective in the activated state.
T.O. Salawudeen , E.O. Dada and S.O. Alagbe , 2007. Performance Evaluation of Acid Treated Clays for Palm Oil Bleaching . Journal of Engineering and Applied Sciences, 2: 1677-1680.