EKB 4343

VEGETABLE OIL MILLING & REFINING PROCESSING

CHAPTER 2:PART 2
SOYBEAN OIL
 EXTRACTOR
• The most prominent used extractor are continuous extraction with oilseeds
and solvent moved in counter-current
• DE SMET Belt extractor
– Consists of a horizontal, sealed vessel in which a slowly moving screen
– Soybeans flaked fed on the belt via feeding hopper with a damper to
regulate the flake bed height at 180 to 240 cm
– Difficult percolation flake is compensated for by lowering bed height
– The extractor throughput is adjustable by changing the belt speed
– Fresh Hexane sprayed on the spent flake discharge end give a last wash
of oil removing
DE SMET Belt extractor
DE SMET Belt extractor (PROCESS)
The dilute micella is collected in a sectional hopper underneath the belt which
it pumped and sprayed again on the flakes at the next section in the direction
opposite to belt movement.

The process of micella collection, pumping and spraying at the next section is
repeated until the micella leaves the hopper at the head-end of the extractor,
carrying the highest concentration of oil (heavy micella)

The screen is washed with heavy micella at the head-end before the entrance
of fresh flakes to prevent clogging, provides surface lubrication and prevents
adhesion of the flakes to the surface of the screen prior to fresh solvent right
after the discharge of spent flakes

DE SMET extraction plants capacity ranging from 25 to 3,000 tons of raw

material per day with solvent losses 0.07% to 0.3% and the residual oil content
of the extracted material 0.25% to 0.6%
LURGI Bucket type-Sliding cell extractor
– The flakes filled into separate baskets with perforated bottoms for
draining manufactured by the LURGI Company
– The baskets moved horizontally similarly to the DE SMET Belt extractor

CROWN Continuous loop extractor

– CROWN built plant capacity up to 4,000 ton per day feed soybean
– Crown extractors’ flake bed is completely turned over permitting solvent
to contact the flakes form both top and bottom
– The swallow bed loop is said to promote excellent contact, rapid
draining and more complete extraction that allow using thinner, more
fragile flakes with higher fines content
LURGI Bucket type-Sliding cell extractor
CROWN Continuous loop extractor
 SOLVENT RECOVERY
• Two streams leave solvent extraction proceed into solvent recovery:
– Oil rich fluid extract (full micella) via Micella distillation
– Solvent loaded spent flakes via Meal desolventizing
Micella distillation
– Full micella contains 30% oil
– Every ton of produced crude oil correspond to 2.5 tons of solvent to be
removed by distillation
– A good micella distillation system are:
i. Good energy economy
ii. Minimal heat damage to the crude oil and its components
iii. Minimal solvent losses
iv. Efficient removal of the last traces of solvent from the oil
v. Good operation safety
– Solvent vaporization process include flash evaporation, vacuum distillation and
steam stripping
Miscella Distillation and Flake Desolventizing
Meal desolventizing
– The spent flakes contain about 35% solvent
– The removal of the solvent is the most critical operations in oil mill
practice as the quality of the meal and its derivatives treated as key
production objective
Desolventizing, Toasting, Drying and Cooling (DTDC)
– Desolventizing, toasting, drying and cooling processes can be
accomplished in a single vessel referred to as a DTDC
– DT is a vertical, cylindrical vessel with four different types of trays i.e.
pre-desolventizing trays, countercurrent trays, a sparge tray, and a steam
drying tray
– The extracted material enters at the top and mixed above each tray, and
conveyed downward from tray to tray by agitating sweeps anchored to a
central rotating shaft
– Direct and indirect steam introduced into the meal for increasing meal
temperature and evaporating the solvent
Desolventizing Toasting Drying Cooling
DTDC (Operation Condition)
– DT pre-desolventizing trays provide conductive heat transfer by
10 barg indirect steam
i. 5 to 10 minutes residence time
ii. De-oiled oilseed material feed at 60°C and discharge at 68°C
iii. Evaporate 10 to 25% solvent
– DT countercurrent trays located directly under the pre-
desolventizing trays provide conductive and convective heat
transfer by 10 barg direct and indirect steam
i. 25 to 30 minutes residence time
ii. Surpassing 100°C before exiting the trays
iii. 99% solvent removed
– DT sparge tray introduce 10 bar direct steam
i. The meal temperature increases from 100°C up to 105–110°C
ii. Residual solvent down to 100 to 500 ppm
iii. Meal moisture increased to16–21%
iv. Meal darkens slightly to a toasted color
DT tray configuration
– DT steam drying tray provide conductive heat transfer by 10 bar
indirect steam
i. Meal temperature holds steady at 100°C
ii. Meal contains 15 to 20% moisture
– DC air dryer trays where hot air is injected up through the meal
i. Meal temperature drops from 100 to 60°C
ii. Reduce the meal moisture meeting trading rule by 12.5%
– DC air cooler tray where cool air is injected up through the meal
i. Meal temperature cooled down to within 10°C of ambient air
 WATER DEGUMMING
Process to remove hydratable phosphatides or gum and filterable solids from
crude soybean oil for:
– Lecithin production
– Prevent sludge formation in storage/ transportation
– Caustic or physical refining
• The phosphatides in crude soybean oil exist in either:
– Hydratable phosphatides (HP)
– Nonhydratable phosphatides (NHP)
• HP are readily removed by addition of water whereas NHP are unaffected by
water and removed in downstream refining
• Crude soybean oil post distillation at about 80 to 90°C and soft water are
mixed inline and flow to a 15 to 30 min retention vessel, then sent to a
centrifuge for removing gum and produce crude degummed oil
Water Degumming
 ALKALINE REFINING
• Process to remove Free Fatty Acid (FFA), Non Hydratable Phosphatides
(NHP), metals and pigments
• Neutralization to saponify the FFA by an alkaline solution; caustic soda and
dilute the resulting soaps in a water phase and removed by centrifuge
separators
• Neutralization involves reaction of free fatty acids with caustic soda which
the FFA (stearic acid) that was split from a triglyceride molecule leaving a
diglyceride in the oil
• Continuous operating neutralization with two separation stages are
common installations but three-stage process is used to achieve higher oil
quality or reduce the process losses
• Crude soybean oil has a high phosphatide content hence degumming is
recommended prior to neutralization to avoid negatively affects of gum
content onto the yield
Three-stage neutralization process
First Stage – Conditioning, Neutralization
• Crude or crude degummed soybean oil conveyed by a feed pump to the
plate heat exchanger for heating up to the required temperature by low
pressure saturated steam of 3 bar, 133°C
• After heating up to 75–85°C, the crude soybean oil flow measured with a
mass flowmeter and indicated on the process control monitor to calculate
the chemicals and water dosage
• The hot oil then conveyed to the first dynamic mixer which 75% phosphoric
acid is used for conditioning the nonhydratable phosphatides (NHP)
• 32 or 50% caustic soda is added to the second intensive mixer with certain
surplus of the stoichiometric amount of free fatty acids and the phosphoric
acid added previously for complete neutralization
Second Stage – Re-refining, First washing
• The second treatment of the oil with caustic soda is only applied to poor
quality oil and cottonseed oil for eliminating its color compound namely
gossypol
• Re-refining is not required for soybean oil neutralization process hence
caustic soda flow to the mixer is prevented by the closed shut off valve
• A certain amount of wash water is added directly ahead of the dynamic
mixer
• The oil and wash water intensively mixed in the dynamic mixer and conveys
to the disc separator where the wash water enriched with soap is separated
Third Stage – Washing
• A second washing stage is used to attain a minimum residual soap content
in the neutral oil
• The wash water added to mix with oil in the dynamic mixer and then
separated from the oil together with residual soap in the separator
• Acidified wash water with either phosphoric acid or citric acid used if
extremely low residual soap contents in the neutral oil are required

Vacuum drying
• The neutralized oil is dried in a vacuum dryer of approx. 50–100 mbar and
the dried oil is conveyed out of the dryer by a self-priming pump
 BLEACHING
• Process of mixing neutralized soybean oil with appropriate dosage of clay
adsorbent range from 0.3 to 0.6%, heated to a bleaching temperature and
then filtered
• To remove some of the color, reduces chlorophyll contents, residual soap
and gums, pigments, trace metals, oxidation products and indirectly
impacts on deodorized oil color
• Good filtration with pressure leaf filters is paramount in ensuring good
quality oil product although bleaching has done good job
• Any spent earth carry over into downstream process i.e. deodorization,
hydrogenation will cause problems i.e. foul equipment surface, catalyzing
oxidative reaction resulting quality issues hence installation of polishing
filters are normal and good practice
• Bleached oil would go directly to hydrogenation or deodorization with little
or no storage time because of its very susceptible to oxidation
Bleaching Plant
Bleaching Clay (Bleaching Earth)
• Bleaching earths are activated with acids ranging from completely natural
clays to highly acid-treated clays as of below:
• The adsorbent activity and impurity removal improve as the clay acidity of a
base mineral is increased approaching pH 2
• However employing acid-activated clays can have detrimental side effects in
the oil i.e. increased levels of free fatty acids and the formation of
undesirable 3-monochloropropane-1,2-diol esters (MCPD)
• Natural clays are preferred by refineries that are sensitive to these
contaminants i.e. meets the “Organic” oil certification because their
manufacture does not involve any restricted chemical agent
Influence of bleaching earth activation levels
Bleached Oil Quality
• Oil quality depends on the product requirement and market dealing with
i.e. deep-frying oils required low residual content of phosphorus (P) <0.5
ppm while salad oil specified P <2 ppm
• Below values serve as industry guidelines to meet product specifications for
bleached oil
– Soaps are completely removed
– Phosphorus content is reduced to below 2 ppm
– Iron content is reduced to below 0.2 ppm
– Chlorophyll content is reduced to below 0.05 ppm
– Peroxide Value is reduced to below 0.5 mEq/kg
• Bleaching earth dosing rate controlled by monitoring bleached oil red color
and/or chlorophyll
• The most universally applied system to determine color is the Lovibond
Tintometer® which assigns a red/ yellow color as in soy and a reasonable
quality for bleached soybean oils are readily reduced to Lovibond colors <
20 yellow, 1 Red
• Monitoring chlorophyll content after bleaching is better practice for
optimizing the neutralized soybean oil bleaching process than the
conventionally monitoring the red color of bleached oils
• Bleaching temperature ranging 90–125°C, with 105°C the optimum
• Higher bleaching temperature decrease oil viscosity resulting better
bleaching earth particles dispersion, improved clay/oil interactions, and less
resistance to flow that give benefits on chlorophyll removal but depending
on oil type and oil quality may in turn worsen the color of the deodorized oil
and its oxidative stability
• The retention time between the oil and the bleaching earth typically from
15 to 45 minutes, with 30 minutes being most common
• Optimizing the moisture content will improve chlorophyll and phosphorus
removal but not fixed due to others impact factors of vacuum dryer
pressure, bleaching temperature, contaminants level in the oil and the
nature of the bleaching clay
• Higher vacuum allows for smooth water evaporation rate resulting in
increased efficiency for phospholipids, chlorophylloids and some red
pigment removal
• Higher vacuum also minimizes interaction of oil and air resulting in lower
peroxide values, anisidine values and bleached oil color
 DEODORIZING
Stripping process which an amount of a stripping steam (0.5 – 1.2%) is passed
for a given period of time (60–90min) through hot oil at a low pressure (2–
3mbar at suction) in which various volatile components of Free Fatty Acid,
pigments, vitamins, oxidation products, sterols, hydrocarbons, resins and other
volatiles at high temperature (250–252°C) for soy oil
Continuous Deodorizing Plant
Semi-Continuous Deodorizing Plant
 HYDROGENATION
• Oils and fats modification process to increase the solids content, improve oxidative
stability and melting properties of the neutralized oil, bleached oil or RBD oil by
reducing their degree of unsaturation
• Hydrogenated oils or fats reach a consistency that is ideal for use as margarine or
shortening components
• Hydrogenation is involving the use of a catalyst i.e. Nickel, and is also an exothermic
reaction
• Oil, gaseous hydrogen and solid catalyst mixed perfectly in a closed vessel with
agitator so that fatty material suspension in contact with hydrogen
• Agitation promote hydrogen absorption and maintain a permanent flow of fatty
material through the pores of the catalyst
• The hydrogenation reactor is batch type equipped with control features for
reaction pressure, reaction temperature and hydrogen flow injection
Batch Hydrogenation Reactor
 TUTORIAL
• State the types of extractor for soybean oil. [3M]
• Explain DE SMET Belt Extractor process [8M]
• Explain meal desolventizing [2M]
• In table format, explain the DTDC operation condition [12M]
• Discuss water degumming process [4M]
• Discuss first stage (conditioning, neutralization) process [4M]
• Discuss first stage bleaching process [5M]
• Discuss the factors influence bleached oil quality [4M]
• Explain briefly the deodorization process [2M]
• Explain briefly the hydrogenation process [4M]