Extractive recovery of p-coumaric acid using natural and conventional organic solvents

Department of Chemical Engineering, Guru Ghasidas Vishwavidyalaya, Bilaspur-495 009, Chhattisgarh, India
Department of Chemical Engineering, Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology, Nagpur-440 010,
Maharashtra, India
E-mail: anu_joshi86@yahoo.com
Manuscript received online 08 April 2020, accepted 01 June 2020

p-Coumaric acid is usually found in effluent from olive oil, pulp-paper and winery industries. It degrades slowly and deteriorates the fertility of soil. On the other hand, it has exceptional medicinal properties and has wide application in health, food, and pharmaceutical industries. In this work physical extraction has been carried out with two natural solvents, rice bran oil and soybean oil and two conventional organic solvents, 1-octanol and p-ether. To identify the suitable solvent, partition coefficient (P), distribution coefficient (K_d), dimerization constant (D) and extraction efficiency (E%) have been investigated and compared. The results showed that 1-octanol is the most effective solvent with extraction efficiency and distribution coefficient being 43.1% and 0.93, respectively.