A vegetable oil refinery plant works on extracting, concentrating and processing of vegetable oil that makes an efficient contribution in providing quality consumable finished products. In layman’s language this machinery refines crude oil so that humans can use it.

Process occurs in following stages where crude oil gets cleansed from gums, Free Fatty Acids (FFA) content, coloring matter, waxes and smell;

Chemical Refining, where chemicals remove FFA content with caustic lye. This process can be applied to all oil extractions.

Physical Refining, where distillation process removes FFA contents with providing high temperature heat that also reduces production of soap in them.

Degumming of hydrable and non-hydrable gums is done with the help of water and acid.

Bleaching removes color pigments present in oils. Here bleaching clays adsorb color pigments which are filtered for further processing.

Deodorizing kills bad smell present in oil through steam distillation under high temperatures. The result totally removes odor & makes oil bland and tasteless.

Dewaxing removes waxes by chilling and filtrating with high melting point substances. Also it separates unsaturated fats from saturated fats like palm oil.

Process Applications

Hydrogenation
Hydrogenation assist vegetable oils produce desired level of oil saturations & fats. This is necessary because some of the food products require oils saturations and fats in them. The process includes high temperature release with pressure presence of a catalyst. Bakery industry uses hydrogenated oil. The hydrogenated oil is controlled under cool conditions so a smooth plastic texture can be generated that perfectly fits the industry.

Lecithin
Gums present in vegetable oils are used as additives or emulsifier in prepared foods. With degumming process, the resulting dry mixture of gums and oil can be sold as lecithin or referred as dry gums.

Separation of Soap
The soap matter itself is usually a waste product. But it has some amount of fats in them, which may be profitable in adding higher value of a product. The procedure here converts soap into fatty acids with acid. Hence resulting product is a mixture of fatty acids and oil which is called acid oil.

Glycerolysis

The distillation process above said may enhance converting fatty acids into oils by Glycerolysis. Here fatty acids mix with glycerin to produce oil. And resulting product developed after drying totals for a higher value sale.