METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR PROCESSING VEGETABLE OIL MISCELLA

摘要

A method for processing vegetable oil miscella is provided. The method includes steps of feeding vegetable oil miscella to a conditioned polymeric microfiltration membrane, and recovering a permeate stream having a decrease d weight percent of phospholipids compared with the weight percent of phospholipids provided in the miscella. The retentate stream can be further processed for the recovery of lecithin. The polymeric microfiltration membra ne can be conditioned for the selective separation of phospholipids in the miscella. A method for conditioning a membrane for selective separation of phospholipids from vegetable oil miscella, and the resulting membrane, are provided. The membrane which can be conditioned can be characterized as havi ng an average pore size of between about 0.1.mu. and about 2.mu..