Solvent design and inherent safety assessment of solvent alternatives for palm oil recovery

The concept of inherent safety is important in developing an inherently safer and user-friendly process. This paper discusses a new integrated approach of computer-aided product design and inherent safety assessment. Computer-aided Molecular Design (CAMD) approach was utilized in this work to identify potential alternative to n-hexane, the widely used industrial solvent in extracting residual palm oil from pressed palm fibre. The formulation of solvent mixtures was optimized to meet the targeted physical properties before being tested using the Soxhlet Extraction method. Inherent safety assessment to assess the solvent's flammability, toxicity, reactivity, and explosiveness was conducted on the new solvent mix, Mixture 1 (n-hexane + ethanol), Mixture 2 (n-hexane + acetone) and Mixture 3 (n-hexane + n-butanol). It was found that Mixture 1 and 3 are safer than n-hexane and able to extract more oil than n-hexane and Mixture 2. However, the utilization of the solvent is dependent on the end product from the residual palm oil.