Mectech Process Engineers Pvt. Ltd.

Udyog Vihar, Gurugram, Haryana

palm oil refining industries are one of the most important manufacturing sectors in the world. Palm oil has become an increasingly important vegetable oil in the world market and currently it is one of the largest traded vegetable oil in the world. Indonesia & malaysia are the largest producer and exporting company of crude palm oil.

crude palm oil is obtained from mesocarp part of palm oil. Extracted crude palm oil contains some undesirable impurities and these impurities need to be removed partially or completely through the refining process in order to produce good edible oil with better stability and keepability.

currently, palm oil is a popular cooking oil in some tropical countries like south east asia, africa, and some parts of brazil. Its popularity is due to its higher heat resistance as compared to any other vegetable oils and also because of its lower cost and good oxidative stability.

Vegetable oil is heated to the desired temperature in a multi-compartment Vacuum Heater with counter current ow of vegetable oil and heating medium i.e. High Pressure Steam or Thermic Fluid.

Pre-heating is gradual and methodical so that all of the oil comes in contact with this sparging system at the free surface exposed to vacuum.

Packed Column with packings of large surface area is provided on the top of Deodorizer. This ensures reduction of Free Fatty Acids to the desired level.

An additional top heating tray is provided below the Packed Column to compensate for the unavoidable loss of heat due to evaporation of Fatty Acids.

Perfect deodorization is accomplished by providing large free surfacing area contact between oil and stripping steam at an absolute pressure of 2 m bar. This results in furnishing oil surface layer of numerous bubbles having 5 - 10 mm diameter. These small bubbles burst and they discharge the water vapour saturated with distilled fatty acids and the odoriferous compounds. These ascending vapours are immediately and freely taken out into lateral ducts through the large section opening provided on top of each stripping tray. This ensures virtually no pressure drop from top to the bottom tray.