Palm oil is squeezed from the palm fruit of oil palm tree. After refining and fractionation of palm oil, it can obtain products with different melting points. It is widely used in catering industry, food industry and chemical industry.
Southeast Asia and Africa are the main producing areas of palm oil, accounting for about 88% of the world's total palm oil production. Indonesia, Malaysia and Nigeria are the top three producing countries in the world.
Palm oil is widely used in cooking and food manufacturing in the world. It is used as cooking oil, crunchy fat and margarine. Like other edible oils, palm oil is easy to digest, absorb and promote health. Palm oil is an important component of fat. It has mild properties and is a good material for making food. There are two kinds of oil in the fruit of oil palm, and palm oil is obtained from the pulp; Palm kernel oil was obtained from palm seed (kernel).
People can obtain Crude palm oil (CPO) and palm kernel (PE) from palm pulp through the process of boiling, crushing and extracting; Meanwhile, during the process of crushing, the palm fruit (i.e. palm kernel) is separated, then crushed and removed from the shell. The remaining nuts are extracted to obtain Crude palm kernel oil （CPKO） and Palm kernel Expeller (PKE）.
Centrifugal separation is the most critical step in the whole extraction process. Horizontal screw decanter centrifuge and disc centrifuge are generally used together for separation and purification.
Centrifugal Separation and Extraction of Palm Oil
Production Process:
- 1. Transport the fruit string into the first squeezing plant within 24 hours after harvesting (to prevent FFA from rising).
- 2. Cooking: Sterilizing at 150 ℃ 85 minutes and boiling the poles of the fruit string.
- 3. Fruit peeling, lifting machine--peeling machine, fruit string rod separation, string rod burning, and fruit to the warehouse.
- 4. Pressing: Screw press machine. The pressed cake is extruded from the machine head, which contains the nut (not cracked, containing palm kernel oil), and the liquids flows out from the lower mouth.
- 5. Fluids into one 100m3 tank, adding water and heating (max.temp.100℃). Be static for a period, the upper layer of crude palm oil is directly discharged and separated by disc centrifuge(separator), while the lower layer of water containing palm oil is taken into decanter centrifuge (three-phase) for separation.
- 6. After three-phase separated, the palm oil was returned to 100 m3 tank to be re-static to recover crude palm oil.
- 7. Press the palm kernel oil, process IV, the pressed cake will be discharged into the Screen separation port.
- Processing of the crushed and extruded flesh fibers to produce fiberboard and paper.
- The fruit core by the conveyor belt is sent to the crusher to break the core shell and separate the kernels.
- The kernels(only about 4%) into press machine, filter and disc centrifuge(separator ), to get the crude palm oil.
