Analysis of factors responsible for optimizing the clarification process of soybean oil: a care study using the desirability function

In the industrial chemical refining process of vegetable oils, clarification stage removes pigments and requires many of inputs that represent a great part of the final cost of refined oil, and optimizing their use is a determinant factor for competitiveness. This article proposes an optimization of soybean oil clarification using the desirability function as a method to obtain such optimization. Experiments were performed in a pilot plant, and the results were assessed according to a minimum and maximum acceptable limit for each response variable for desirability function procedure. The results demonstrated that clarification procedure has an optimum solution when performed with 2% of adsorbent concentration, 0.5% of filtering auxiliary concentration and 65 min of the process at 140°C. Thus, it can be concluded that the optimization methodology, through the desirability function, results in optimization with parameters value consistent with the practice, and it can be widely applied as a method to maximize results.