Temperature Effect in the Babassu (Orbignya speciosa) Oil: A Physico-Chemical Study

Abstract

Babassu (Orbignya speciosa) is a Brazilian palm with extraordinary importance in socioeconomic and ecologic terms. It is found in humid tropical areas, especially in degraded landscapes. There are several uses for babassu coconut and babassu oil. However, their immense potential for large-scale providing other industrial products still needs to be explored due to the necessity for modern scale planning and deep knowledge of vast spectrum thermodynamic properties. This paper gathers a new experimental physico-chemical study of the temperature effect on two critical properties, density and ultrasonic velocity for babassu oil, due to its rising economic significance and a high potential for intensive farming in regions with low economic resources. We consider how accurately different theoretical prediction methods work due to modern processes, design, and algorithm simulations being strongly computer-oriented. The Agrawal-Thodos equation for density and Collision Factor Theory for ultrasonic velocity was selected, mainly attending to ease of use and range of application. We observed a good response at the studied conditions, despite geometrical simplifications into triglyceride molecules and using estimated critical magnitudes by molecular group contribution approach. A broad comparison was made with disposable open literature thermodynamic data, showing an essential dispersion of data, and highlighting the quality of the experimental data presented in this work.