Bran polish potential as an edible oil and oryzanol source is valuable due to its benefit for the health of the heart and cardiovascular system. However, the technology to separate oryzanol content from the bran-polish oil has yet to be developed in Indonesia.
The student of Doctoral Program Faculty of Engineering UGM, Ari Diana Susanti, S.T., M.T., succeeded to conduct a research on the model of oryzanol separation from bran-polish oil using adsorption process. The adsorption-desorption process in the form of chromatography is used to extract oryzanol with high purity level. “This research aims to get the right solvent composition and an optimum cycle time for adsorption and desorption process,” said Ari Diana Susi during an open examination for doctoral promotion at Faculty of Engineering UGM on Tuesday (11/4).
Based on her research entitled Study of Oryzanol Separation from Bran Polish Oil Using Adsorption Process, she concluded that the solvent mixture of n-hexane and acetone with the ratio of 85 percent and 15 percent, respectively, results in an effective oryzanol adsorption process from bran-polish oil. Meanwhile, the adsorption becomes reversible and exothermic at the temperature between 29 until 40 degree Celsius.
Ari Diana Susanti said various experiments show the adsorption process has to be stopped if its recovery reaches 95 percent and the desorption process should also be stopped if its recovery reaches 70 percent.
Despite being one of the oryzanol isolation methods, the availability of solvent for adsorption and desorption process is still low and it is even inapplicable for a commercial process. “Therefore, the oryzanol separation process from bran-polish oil using adsorption process is essential to be optimized by finding the optimum solvent composition for industrial scale,” she added.