Membranes (Apr 2024)

Enrichment of Nutmeg Essential Oil from Oil-in-Water Emulsions with PAN-Based Membranes

  • Huilan Yin,
  • Haoyu Zhang,
  • Jiaoyang Cui,
  • Qianlian Wu,
  • Linlin Huang,
  • Jiaoyue Qiu,
  • Xin Zhang,
  • Yanyu Xiang,
  • Bo Li,
  • Hongbo Liu,
  • Zhishu Tang,
  • Yue Zhang,
  • Huaxu Zhu

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/membranes14050097
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 14, no. 5
p. 97

Abstract

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This study used polyacrylonitrile (PAN) and heat-treated polyacrylonitrile (H-PAN) membranes to enrich nutmeg essential oils, which have more complex compositions compared with common oils. The oil rejection rate of the H-PAN membrane was higher than that of the PAN membrane for different oil concentrations of nutmeg essential oil-in-water emulsions. After heat treatment, the H-PAN membrane showed a smaller pore size, narrower pore size distribution, a rougher surface, higher hydrophilicity, and higher oleophobicity. According to the GC-MS results, the similarities of the essential oils enriched by the PAN and H-PAN membranes to those obtained by steam distillation (SD) were 0.988 and 0.990, respectively. In addition, these two membranes also exhibited higher essential oil rejection for Bupleuri Radix, Magnolia Officinalis Cortex, Caryophylli Flos, and Cinnamomi Cortex essential oil-in-water emulsions. This work could provide a reference for membrane technology for the non-destructive separation of oil with complex components from oil-in-water emulsions.

Keywords