Optimization of Squalene Extraction from Palm Fatty Acid Distillate (PFAD) in Multistage Process

Squalene is a compound widely known as one of the natural antioxidants used in the cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries. As the main source of squalene, which is shark liver oil, is becoming more limited in its availability, attempts have been made to extract squalene from other sources, e.g. from vegetable oils. Research has found that one of the wastes produced by palm oil industry, namely the palm fatty acid distillate (PFAD), contains squalene among other useful compounds. Since Indonesia is one of the largest producers of palm oil, the abundant amount of PFAD becomes very interesting to be a solution in coping with today demand of natural squalene. In this research, the extraction of squalene from PFAD is optimized through a multiple-stage extraction process, where results show a significant increase of squalene yield. Furthermore, the liquid-liquid phase equilibrium data for an extraction using dichloromethane (DCM) were plotted to develop a ternary-phase-diagram between squalene, DCM and free-fatty acids.