KWAME NKRUMAH UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

ELECTROLYTE DEGUMMING OF CRUDE VEGETABLE OIL By ADAMS NSIAH BSc. (Hons) Chem. Eng.

A Thesis submitted to the Department of Food Science and Technology, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree

of

MASTER OF SCIENCE IN FOOD SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY College of Science

September, 2012

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DECLARATION I hereby declare that this submission is my own work towards the MSc. Food Science and Technology programme. To the best of my knowledge, it contains no material previously published by another person or material which has been accepted for the award of any other degree of the university, except where due acknowledgment has been made in the text.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I give thanks, honor and glory to the Almighty God for his divine wisdom, blessing and grace upon my life. First, I want to extend my special gratitude to my supervisor, Mr. Isaac W. Ofosu whose guidance and counsel paved a successful way for the completion of this project. Secondly, I want to thank my mother Mad. Elizabeth AgyemangDuah and sister Mrs. Mercy Anakwa for their love, financial support and guidance throughout my education.

Not forgetting Mr. Napoleon, all lecturers,

technicians and students of the Department of Food Science and Technology for their help in diverse ways.

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ABSTRACT Electrolyte degumming is an emerging procedure which employs the use of electrolytes in the removal of phospholipids present in crude vegetable oil. In this research, Crude soya bean oil (CSBO) was degummed using six factors; electrolyte concentration (0.5-3.0 % w/v), electrolyte-oil ratio (1-5 % v/v), temperature of medium (50 -80 oC), reaction time (30-60 min), agitation speed (150-300 rpm) and the electrolyte combination (KCl-CaCl2; NaCl-MgCl2). Response surface methodology was used to randomize the factors involved in the process, analyze the responses obtained,predict the best-fit regression model and optimize the degumming experiment. A reduced quartic model was obtained as the best model with p