Process Optimization of Fatty Acids Production from Soybean Oil via Continuous Subcritical Water-Mediated Hydrolysis

Non-catalytic hydrolysis of soybean oil using subcritical water is statistically optimized in a continuous flow reactor to produce fatty acids (FA). Response surface methodology (RSM) in combination with central composite design (CCD) is applied to evaluate the relationships between the FA content and processing parameters including reaction temperature, pressure, volumetric ratio of water to oil, and reaction time. The results show that optimum processing conditions for maximizing the FA content were 294 degrees C, 12 MPa, a volumetric ratio of 1.8, and a reaction time of 22 min. The predicted FA content is 96.78% under the statistically optimized conditions, and this value is almost identical to the experimental value with an insignificant error of 0.67%.