Degumming, dewaxing and deacidification of rice bran oil-hexane miscella using ceramic membrane: pilot plant study

An indigenously developed low-cost clay-alumina-based ceramic microfiltration membrane of 19-channel configuration has been evaluated for degumming, dewaxing and deacidification of rice bran oil (RBO) miscella having different oil contents at pilot scale. Rice bran wax and soap particles in miscella will aggregate with changes in temperature. This suggests a technique for their effective separation. Low-temperature cross-flow membrane filtration was used for single-stage degumming-dewaxing and showed 70 % and 80 % removal of acetone insoluble residue from two RBO miscella samples, respectively. Color reduction was 50 %, and oryzanol retention was 70 %. NaOH was used for deacidification in a 10 % excess of that required based on the free fatty acid content in oil. This reduced free fatty acids to 0.2 %. Operating for 10 h with a 0.7 bar trans-membrane pressure, permeate fluxes of 15 and 8 L/m(2) hr were obtained for the degumming-dewaxing and deacidification operations, respectively. The process has advantages, such as high micronutrient content (1.56 % oryzanol) and negligible oil loss (2.6 %). Moreover, ceramic membrane processing of RBO miscella could be an effective pre-treatment step with respect to micronutrient enrichment, elimination of heating, neutral oil recovery and a viable option for solvent separation

A Review of Multi-Responsive Membranous Systems for Rate-Modulated Drug Delivery

Membrane technology is broadly applied in the medical field. The ability of membranous systems to effectively control the movement of chemical entities is pivotal to their significant potential for use in both drug delivery and surgical/medical applications. An alteration in the physical properties of a polymer in response to a change in environmental conditions is a behavior that can be utilized to prepare ‘smart’ drug delivery systems. Stimuli-responsive or ‘smart’ polymers are polymers that upon exposure to small changes in the environment undergo rapid changes in their microstructure. A stimulus, such as a change in pH or temperature, thus serves as a trigger for the release of drug from membranous drug delivery systems that are formulated from stimuli-responsive polymers. This article has sought to review the use of stimuli-responsive polymers that have found application in membranous drug delivery systems. Polymers responsive to pH and temperature have been extensively addressed in this review since they are considered the most important stimuli that may be exploited for use in drug delivery, and biomedical applications such as in tissue engineering. In addition, dual-responsive and glucose-responsive membranes have been also addressed as membranes responsive to diverse stimuli