Palm Oil Refining
Palm Oil Refining
Palm Oil Refining
Degumming / Neutralization | Bleaching | Deodorization | Dewaxing (Winterisation) | Dry Fractionation | Miscella Refining
To increase existing plant production capacity when one needs to meet new commitments in sales increases.
CHEMPRO started with replacing of obsolete filter presses with Pressure Leaf Filters and in a short span of 3 years we installed more
than 40 Pressure Leaf Filters from 10 sq. m. to 40 sq. m. filtration area which gave our customers benefits in terms of expanded
capacity, utility savings and ease of operation. Buoyed with the success of our pressure leaf filter installations we found the need to
offer continuous bleaching systems as an upgrade so that our clients could achieve still higher production capacities, consistent
quality , ease of operation and an automated dosing of chemicals. In a span of 2 years we installed 20 such continuous bleaching
systems which was again widely acclaimed by the industry as better than the contemporary systems offered by multinationals at
exorbitant prices.
We then found the need to upgrade the deodorization process by changing the Batch deodorizer into continuous by installing SS
trays, augmenting the heat exchange system by installing interchangers, revamping of existing vacuum systems and thus enabling our
customers achieve quality in comparison to that offered by the multinationals.
Again our customers rewarded us with orders varying from 25 TPD to 200 TPD complete grassroot vegetable oil refining plants. In a
short span of 2 years again we installed 8 plants upgrading each time to meet the ever changing technology needs of the industry. The
need of the hour in industry is plant which can cater to variety of oils like palm oil, palm kernel oil, soybean oil, cottonseed oil, corn
oil, rapeseed oil, sunflower oil, etc. We were required to upgrade a 100 TPD tray column to a 200 TPD physical refiner with the same
steam consumption which we did by installing a Packed Column Prestripper and a cascade-tray Deaerator. This was another
milestone we achieved heralding a new era in the refining technology.
Top
Crude oil is rened and bleached to low phosphorus (<1ppm) and low moisture content (<0.1%).
The oil is heated to 55C to make sure the oil is fully liquid.
Cooled oil is held in a specially insulated tank with a special slow-speed mechanical agitator.
The oil is mixed with diatomaceous earth/filter aid through an in-line mixing system and filtered through a pressure leaf filter
pre-coated with diatomaceous earth/filter aid.
The filtered oil is collected, checked for cold test and filterable impurities, and then deodorized.
The deodorized oil is checked again for cold test along with the other analyses listed earlier.
Flowchart
Dry Fractionation
Overview
The widespread use of the three oil modification processes - hydrogenation, interesterification and fractionation - extended the
range of applications of the triglyceride oils. These processes principally serve the purpose of modifying the melting properties of
oils and fats in order to improve their functional properties in specific applications, but the processes are also used to improve
the stability of the oils and fats thus processed.
In edible oil processing, a fractionation process consists of a controlled cooling of the oil, thereby inducing a partial, or fractional,
crystallization. The remaining liquid (olein) is then separated from the solid fraction (stearin) by means of filtration or centrifugation.
Natural oils and fats have different characteristics due to the fact that they are composed of a great number of different triglycerides.
These contain fatty acids with carbon chins of different lengths and with different degrees of unsaturation.
Triglycerides with a high degree of unsaturation, indicated by a high iodine value, have a lower melting point than those containing
more saturated fatty acids. If oil is cooled to a certain temperature, the high melting triglyceride (Stearin) will crystallize while the
low melting ones will remain fluid. The stearin can then be separated from oil (Olein) by different methods and the fat/oil is thus
divided into two fractions: Stearin with a high melting point and olein with a low cloud and melting points.
This technique is called fractional crystallization and used to obtain oils or fats more suitable for example, as cooking oils or for
margarine/shortening production.
Three palm oil fractionation processes which are in use:
Dry Fractionation: through batch crystallization of oil without using additives by controlled cooling and subsequent continuous
filtration.
Solvent Fractionation: through continuous crystallization of the oil in a solvent followed by separation of the liquid and solid
fractions through a continuous drum filter. Solvent fractionation, involves the use of hexane or acetone to let the high-melting
components crystallize in a very low-viscous organic solvent. This can be helpful with respect to the selectivity of the reaction, but
mainly offers advantages in the field of phase separation: much purer solid fractions can be obtained, even with a vacuum filtration.
Being a more expensive process, it is less common than dry fractionation and only comes into the picture when a very high added
value of (at least one of) the resulting fractions makes up for the high cost.
Detergent Fractionation: through batch or continuous crystallization of the oil by controlled cooling and separation of the fractions
either by gravity or centrifugation after adding a surfactant.
Alternative Routes to Fractionate Palm Oil
Key: CBE =cocoa butter equivalent, CBI = cocoa butter improver, PMF = palm mid- fraction
Description
Dry fractionation of oils and fats is the separation of high-melting triglycerides from low-melting triglycerides by crystallization from
the melt. Apart from blending, it is the cheapest process in oils and fats processing. It is a pure physical process compared to other
chemical modification processes such as hydrogenation and interesterification which modify triglycerides. Its most important
applications are: palm olein used extensively as frying oil, palm super olein as salad oil and frying oil, the palm-mid fraction as
component of cocoa butter equivalent, palm kernel stearin as cocoa butter substitute.
Dry fractionation, also known as crystallization from the melt, is fractional crystallization in its most simple form, and the economy
of the technology allows it to be used for production of commodity fats. Dry fractionation has long been regarded as an
unpredictable, tedious and labor-intensive process. However, the relatively cheap dry fractionation technique has evolved to the
modification technology of the 21st century, as without additives, polluting effluents or post-refining involved, the sustainability and
safety of the process is second to none.
It should be able to gently cool down a mass of oil and keep the resulting crystal suspension as homogeneous as possible. Note that
such gentle cooling means in fact imposing very low supercooling conditions, and it will result in a formation of fewer and larger
crystals, because the said conditions simply rule out the existence of a mass of tiny crystals. Fat crystallization is a fairly exothermic
reaction (up to 180 kJ can be released for every kg of crystals formed), so the efficiency with which this energy can be removed is an
important design feature. For most industrial crystallizers, this ranges between 120 and 200 W/m2.K.
Although the triglyceride separation theoretically is already established during crystallization, it is clear that the separation stage itself
effectively determines the product yields as well as the stearin quality. As more residual olein can be expelled from the solids cake,
the final stearin will be more concentrated in crystals and will turn out purer and will display higher and steeper melting. The olein
quality is determined entirely by the amount and selectivity of crystallization in the preceding stage. In some applications, the formed
crystals are often not sufficiently stress-resistant and get squeezed through the filter medium. Obviously, such contamination of
crystals in the olein phase affects the efficiency of the fractionation process negatively and results in a liquid phase with inferior cold
stable properties. Overall, the permitted degree of olein dilution in the stearin cake determines the choice for the applied separation
technology.
Figure: Pressure Leaf Filter
The development of membranes for use in pressure filtration had a widespread effect on fractionation technology, making both
vacuum filtration in dry fractionation as well as LIPOFRAC fractionation almost instantly redundant. By using membrane filter
presses, olein yields in palm oil fractionation could be raised to close on 80% when aiming for an increase in Iodine Value of 5
units, and two-stage fractionation, which could be used to produce olein of higher Iodine Values or stearin containing less entrained
olein, became an attractive proposition.
When first introduced, pressure filtration using membranes was carried out at pressures of 6-8 bar, but in more recent years
higher pressures have been used. The use of high squeeze pressure (30 bar) in the filter makes it possible to produce a palm midfraction that matches in its principal characteristics the mid-fraction obtained by solvent fractionation. Also by changing the
sequence of the fractionation stages in a two- stage process, different qualities of the fractions may be obtained, thus enhancing the
versatility of the process.
The first step of dry fractionation of palm oil yields olein fractions with a cloud point below 10C. The olein fractions are used as a
substitute for soft oils in frying, cooking and salad oils or are being further fractionated. Together with a further development of
single-stage palm oil fractionation by technological improvements, there is an increased tendency to execute a double or triple
fractionation of palm oil in order to produce fractions with specific characteristics such as high IV superoleins (IV>65) and hard
palm-mid-fractions (hard PMF) (IV<36).
The latter fraction can serve as a feedstock for the production of typical cocoa butter equivalents (CBE), which are non-lauric fats
similar in their physical and chemical properties to cocoa butter. They are often prepared by solvent fractionation, though the more
contemporary developments within dry fractionation (better suited crystallizers, improved separation technologies) are closing the
gap between the quality of solvent- and dry-fractionated hard PMF.
Economics of Fractionation
Dry fractionation has the advantage of basically only requiring crystallisers and filters, though filter costs have risen considerably
as the separating performance of the filter has grown. Dry fractionation is also non-energy-intensive, which obviously is
advantageous from the point of view of operating costs.
It must be remembered, however, that in the case of fractionation the value of the secondary fraction(s) can play a significant role
in the economics of production., and it is in this respect that fractionation is at a disadvantage when compared to the other oil
modification processes, i.e. hydrogenation and interesterification , as these processes produce no secondary products that require
marketing.
Flowchart
Miscella Refining
What is Refining?
The crude oil obtained either from expellers or solvent extraction plant
contains impurities, which must be removed to make the oil edible,
more palatable and stable against rancidity upon storage. The process
of removing these impurities is called refining.
Impurities present in the Oil
The crude miscella feedstock from the extractor is first adjusted to the desired miscella concentration by evaporation in the
first stage evaporator or economiser against the outgoing vapours from the deodorosed tank.
The crude miscella is pumped through a heat exchanger to bring the miscella upto the desired processing temperature.
The crude miscella proceeds through a flow measuring device enters the neutralization process.
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This process is completed by a four step process: Conditioning, Neutralization, Washing, and Drying.
The fats are heated between 40 and 85C and treated with an aqueous solution of sodium hydroxide(Caustic Soda).
Conditioning transforms non-hydrate phospholipids into their hydrate form by breaking down metal/phosphatide
complexes with a strong acid(Phosphoric Acid).
In neutralization the removal of free fatty acids and residual gums takes place.
The reacted mixture is then passed through a trim heat exchanger to ensure the proper temperature for the centrifugation in the
Hermetic Self cleaning centrifuge. The light coloured, refined miscella is easily separted from the dark brown gelatinuous
soapstock in the specially designed centrifuge with nitrogen blanketing. The oil is dissolved in hexane in miscella refining,
which is why the separators which separate the soapstock from the neutralization process are blanketed with inert gas.
The refined miscella then reenters the extraction plant stripping system for removal of remaining hexane.
The soapstock, with its low hexane content, is usually pumped directly to the desolventiser-toaster for the recovery of hexane.
The addition of soapstock to the meal in the deodorized tank helps prevent excessively dusty meal and gives it a more natural
appearance and makes it easier to handle. The soapstock generally increases the weight and fat content of the meal by
approximately 0.9% and adds to its nutrient and commercial value as an animal feed.
The soapstock also tends to decrease the free gossypol content remaining in the solvent extracted meal.
Removal of colour bodies before the oil is heated to remove hexane. This gives a finished product with excellent colour
properties.
A lower refining loss due to less occluded neutral oil in the soapstock.
Elimination of the water washing and vacuum drying step which is necessary in conventional refining to remove residual soap
resulting in reduction in pollution problems.
Reduction in energy requirements due to the physical properties of Miscella ie. Low specific gravity and lower viscosity.
Higher yields due the fact that the miscella does not easily emulsify and the soap tends not to entrain oil.
Removal of gums, colour bodies and other impurities in miscella refining helps prevent loss of efficiency in evaporators.
Increased flexibility of operation because refining, degumming, dewaxing and hydrogenation can be performed continuously
in the miscella.
Allow adding purchased crude oil or off specification refined oil to current plant production of miscella for refining or
reprocessing.
The miscella containing soapstock can be advantageously added to the meal for solvent recovery and to utilize nutrients in the
soapstock.
Pertama-tama bahan baku yang digunakan oleh plant fisika adalah crude palm oil (CPO) dari tangki penyimpan CPO (storage
tank). CPO dialirkan dengan rate 35-60 ton/jam. Temperatur inisial CPO adalah 40 60 oC. Umpan dipompa melalui sistem yang
mengembalikan panas (heat recovery system), yang plate heat exchanger bertambah menjadi 60-90 oC.
Setelah itu, kira-kira 20 % umpan CPO menjadi slurry dan campur dengan bleaching earth (6 12 kg/ton CPO) menjadi bentuk
slurry (CPO + Bleaching earth). Pengaduk dalam tank slurry mencampur CPO dengan bleaching earth secara sempurna.
Kemudian slurry menuju bleacher.
Pada waktu yang sama, 80 % CPO dipompa melalui plate heat exchanger (PHE) dan pemanas steam menaikkan temperatur CPO
menjadi 90 130 oC (temperature yang diharapkan untuk reaksi antara CPO dan asam fosfat). Kemudian, Umpan CPO dipompa
ke mixer static dan asam fosfat dengan dosis 0,35 -0,45 kg/ton. Di dalamnya, pengadukan secara intensif dengan minyak mentah
untuk mempresipitasi gum (getah). Presipitasi gum akan meringankan proses filtrasi nantinya, mencegah pembentukan scale
dalam deodorizer dan panas permukaan. Degumming CPO kemudian menuju bleacher.
Dalam bleacher, ada 20 % slurry dan 80 % CPO yang didegumming dicampur bersama dan proses bleaching terjadi. Proses
bleaching termasuk penambahan bleaching earth untuk menghilangkan beberapa impurities yang tidak diinginkan (semua
pigment, trace metals, produk oksidasi) dari CPO dan akan memperbaiki rasa aslinya, bau akhir, dan kestabilan oksidasi produk.
Hal ini juga membantu mengatasi masalah proses berikutnya dengan adsorpsi trace sabun, pro-oxidant metal ion, dekomposisi
peroxide, pengurangan warna, dan adsorb impurities minor. Temperatur dalam bleacher harus sekitar 100-130 oC untuk
mendapatkan proses bleaching optimum untuk periode bleaching 30 menit. Steam dengan tekanan rendah dimasukkan dalam
bleacher untuk menggerakkan slurry berkonsentrasi untuk kodisi bleaching yang lebih baik.
Slurry mengandung minyak dan bleaching earth kemudian melalui filter Niagara agar bersih, bebas dari partikel bleaching earth.
Temperatur dijaga pada 80 120 oC untuk proses filtrasi yang baik. Pada filter Niagara, slurry melewati lembaran filter dan
bleaching earth terjebak dalam lembaran filter. Sebenarnya, bleaching earth harus bersih dari filter Niagara setelah 45 menit
operasi untuk mendapatkan filtrasi yang baik. Bleached palm oil (BPO) dari filter Niagara dipompa menuju tank buffer yang
sebagai storage sementara sebelum proses lebih lanjut.
Pada umumnya, dicheck pada filter kedua, perangkap filter yang digunakan dengan filter Niagara untuk menjamin bahwa tidak
ada bleaching earth lolos terjadi. Adanya bleaching earth mencemari deodorizer, mengurangi stabilitas oksidasi dari produk
minyak dan berlaku sebagai katalis untuk aktifitas dimerizaition dan polimerisasi. Karena itu, beberapa koreksi dapat diambil
secepatnya.
BPO keluar dari filter dan melalui rangkaian sistem pengembalian panas (heat recovery system), Schmidt plate heat exchanger
dan spiral (termal minyak: 250-305 oC) heat exchanger memanaskan BPO dari 80 120 oC sampai 210 250 oC.
BPO panas dari spiral heat exchanger kemudian diproses ke tahap selanjutnya dimana FFA dan warna dikurangi dan lebih
penting, menghilangkan bau menghasilkan produk yang stabil dan bau yang berkurang.
Dalam kolom pre-stripping dan deodorizing, proses deacidification dan deorization terjadi secara bersamaan. Deodorisasi pada
temperature tinggi, vakum yang tinggi, dan proses destilasi vakum. Operasi deodorizer dengan alat: 1. Dearasi minyak, 2.
Memanaskan minyak, 3. Steam strips minyak, 4. Mendinginkan minyak sebelum meninggalkan sistem. Semua material adalah
stainless steel.
Pada kolom, minyak umumnya dipanaskan kira-kira 240 280 oC di bawah vakum. Vakum kurang dari 10 torr biasanya dijaga
oleh ejector dan booster. Panas bleaching minyak terjadi pada temperatur ini melalui perusakan termal pigmen karotenoid.
Penggunaan steam langsung (direct steam) menjamin pembuangan residu FFA, aldehida dan keton yang tidak diharapkan rasa
dan baunya. Berat molekul yang lebih rendah dari fatty acid yang teruapkan naik ke kolom dan tertarik keluar oleh sistem yang
vakum. Uap fatty acid meninggalkan deodorizer didinginkan dan dikumpulkan dalam kondensor fatty acid sebagai fatty acid.
Fatty acid kemudian didinginkan dalam fatty acid cooler dan dikeluarkan menuju storage tank fatty acid dengan temperature
sekitar 60 80 oC sebagai destilat asam lemak kelapa sawit (palm fatty acid distillate/ PFAD), by produk dari proses refinery.
Produk bawah (bottom product) dari pre-stripper dan deodorizer adalah refined, bleached, deodorized palm oil (RBDPO).
RBDPO panas (250-280 oC) dipompa melalui Schimidt Heat Exchanger untuk memindahkan panasnya ke BPO yang masuk
dengan temperature rendah. Lalu, melalui perangkap filter lainnya untuk mendapat minyak akhir (120 140 oC) untuk mencegah
earth trace dari reaching tangki produk. Setelah itu, RBDPO melalui RBDPO cooler dan plate heat exchanger untuk
memindahkan panas ke umpan CPO. RBDPO dipompa ke storage dengan temperatur 50 80 oC. (Galz-dari Refinery of Palm
Oil)