Refinery of Palm Oil

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Refinery of Palm

Oil Jit Kang’s


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Introduction to Palm Oil: From dust to dawn


The economical history of the oil palm (Elaeis guineensis) began in the rain forests of
western Africa in the late 19th century. Since its introduction into Malaysia in the early 20th
century until the early sixties its impact on the economy was marginal. For many years the
economy of Malaysia had depended for its wealth and prosperity upon rubber. In 1961, Malaysia
embarked on an intensive agricultural diversification program, and the crop that has achieved the
most notable success since then is palm oil. Within a relatively short period, Malaysia became
the world's largest commercial producer and exporter of palm oil in 1966. Diversification into oil
palm means that the country is now less dependent on the fortunes of rubber as a plantation crop.

Palm Oil a Cost Effective Product


Palm oil is obtained from the flesh of the palm fruit. Each palm tree produces approximately one
fruit bunch, containing as many as 3000 fruitlets, per month. In addition, each palm tree
continues producing fruit economically for up to 25 years. This ensures a constant stable supply,
as compared with other annual crops.
Naturally, palm oil is characterized as stabilized oil due to its chemical composition. As
such, it can be used in most food applications without hydrogenation, thus, reducing production
cost by as much as 30%. Palm oil also is priced competitively and can represent a saving of upto
several cents per pound, compared to other edible oils.

Palm oil is available in a variety of forms: crude palm oil, palm olein, palm stearin, RBD
palm oil, fractionated palm olein and pal mid-fraction. While most of the oil Malaysia exports is
RBD palm oil and RBD palm olein, the range of products is available to suit a variety of
manufacturing needs and in forms that are ready-to-use and require no further processing.
Palm Oil Composition
Palm oil is extracted from the mesocarp of the fruit of the palm Elaeis guineensis. There
are a few varieties of this plant but Tenera, which is a hybrid of the Dura and the Pisifera, present
abundantly through out the whole Peninsular.

The mesocarp comprises about 70 - 80% by weight of the fruit and about 45 -50% of this
mesocarp is oil. The rest of the fruit comprises the shell, kernel, moisture and other non fatty
fiber.The extracted oil is known as crude palm oil (CPO) which until quite recently was known
as the golden commodity.

Palm oil like all natural fats and oils comprises mainly Triglyceries, mono and
diglycerides. Free fatty acids, moisture, dirt and minor components of non oil fatty matter
referred to collectively as unsaponifiable matter.

1. Tryglyceride

It is a chemical compound of one molecule of glycerol bound to three molecules of Fatty


Acid.

CH2 – OH + R1-COOH CH2 – COOR1

CH – OH + R2-COOH CH – COOR2 + 3H2O

CH2 – OH + R3-COOH CH2 – COOR3

Glycerol Fatty Acid Triglyceride Water

The fatty acids could be of the same type or they could be different. The property of a
triglyceride will depend on the different fatty acids that combine to form the triglyceride.

The fatty acids themselves are different depending on their chain length and degree of
saturation. The short chain fatty acids are of lower melting point and are more soluble in water.
Whereas, the longer chain fatty acids have higher melting points. The melting point is also
dependent on degree of non-saturation. Unsaturated acids will have a lower melting point
compared to saturated fatty acids of similar chain length.

The 2 most predominant fatty acids in palm oil are C16:0(saturated) palmitic acid and
C18:1 (unsaturated) oleic acid. Typical fatty acid composition of palm oil is given as:

C12:0 Lauric - 0.2%

C14:0 Myrstic - 1.1%

C16:0 Palmitic - 44.0%

C18:0 Stearic - 4.5%

C18:1 Oleic - 39.2%

C18:2 Linoleic - 10.1%

Others - 0.9%

2. Mono and di-glycerides and FFA

In the presence of heat and water the triglycerides break up by a process known as
hydrolysis to form free fatty acids thus yielding mono and di-glycerides and FFA which is of
crucial importance to the refiners.

Hydrolysis can be represented as below:

CH2 – COOR1 + CH2 – OH

CH – COOR2 + H2O CH – COOR2 +


R1COOH
CH2 – COOR3 + CH2 – COOR3

Triglyceride Water Diglyceride FFA

Mono and diglycerides account for about 3 to 6% by weight of the glycerides in the oil.
Good oils having lower amount of mono and diglycerides is said to be of great importance in the
fractionation process because they act as emulsifying agents inhibiting crystal formation and
making filtration difficult.

The amount of mono and diglycerides and FFA is reduced in the process of refining as
can be seen from their concentration in the DFA(Distillate Fatty Acid).

3. Moisture and Dirt

This is a result of milling practice. Good milling will reduce moisture and dirt in palm oil
but normally it is in the range of 0.25%.

4. Minor Component

These are classified into one category because they are fatty in nature but are not really oils.
They are referred to as unsaponifiable matter and they include the following:

a. Carotineoids

b. Tocopherols

c. Sterols

d. Polar Lipids

e. Impurities

As a conclusion, palm oil is one of the most widely consumed edible oils in the world
today. Beside, it contains more monounsaturated fatty acids than many other vegetable oils.
Recent scientific studies indicate that consumption of monounsaturated has some beneficial
effects in order to maintain a healthy life style. In addition, compared with other vegetable oils,
palm oil is a rich source of the anti-oxidant vitamin E containing about 360 – 600 ppm in its
refined form. There are certain reports show that:

• Palm oil did not increase baseline serum cholesterol

• Palm oil did not affect LDL/HDL ratio.

• The vitamin E found in palm oil behaved as an anti-oxidant.

Physical Refinery: The first step toward edibility


Palm oils consist mainly of glycerides and, like other oils in their crude form, small and
variable portions of non-glyceride components as well. In order to render the oils to an edible
form, some of these non-glycerides need to be either removed or reduced to acceptable levels.

In term of solubility study – glycerides are of two broad types: oil insoluble and oil
soluble. The insoluble impurities consisting of fruit fibres, nut shells and free moisture mainly,
are readily removed. The oil soluble non-glycerides which include free fatty acids,
phospholipids, trace metals, carotenoids, tocopherols or tocotrienols, oxidation products and
sterols are more difficult to remove and thus, the oil needs to undergo various stages of refining.

Not all of the above non-glyceride components are undesirable. The tocopherols and
tocotrienols not only help to protect the oil from oxidation, which is detrimental to flavour and
keep ability of the finished oil, but also have nutritional attributes, α − and β −carotene, the
major constituents of carotenoids, are precursors of vitamin A. The other impurities generally are
detrimental to the oil’s flavour, odour, colour and keep ability and thus influence the oil’s
usefulness.

The aim of refining is therefore to convert the crude oil to quality edible oil by removing
objectionable impurities to the desired levels in the most efficient manner. This also means that,
where possible, losses in the desirable component are kept minimal. The impurities which are
contained in the crude palm oil (CPO) is shown in table 1.0:

Substances Content

Free Fatty Acid (FFA) 3 - 5%

Gums (phospholipids, phosphotides) 300 ppm


Dirt 0.01%

Shell Trace

Moisture and Impurities 0.15%

Trace metal 0.50%

Oxidation Products Trace

Total Carotenoids 500 - 1000 mg/ke

Table 1.0 Composition of CPO

General speaking, the refining routes of palm oil is quite identical. There are two routes
are taken to process crude oil into refined oil; which are chemical (basic) refining and physical
refining. The methods differ basically in the way the fatty acids are removed from the oil.
Physical refining, which eliminates the need for an effluent plant for the soap stock, involves
subjecting the oil to steam distillation under higher temperature and vacuum for removal of the
free fatty acids. The physical refining is used to remove the free fatty acids. The refining of
physical plant is practiced to subject the oil to steam distillation. The typical refining process is
shown in Figure 1.0.

Physical Refinery Process Description


The raw material which is used by physical plant is crude palm oil (CPO) from the CPO
storage tank. CPO is feed at the flow rate about 35-60 tons/hour. The initial temperature of CPO
is at 40 – 60°C. The feed is pumped through the heat recovery system, that is plate heat
exchanger to increase the temperature around 60 – 90°C.

After that, there is about 20% of the CPO feed to into the slurry and mix with the
bleaching earth (6 – 12kg/ton CPO) to form slurry (CPO + Bleaching earth). The agitator inside
the slurry tank will mixed the CPO and bleaching earth completely. Then, the slurry will go into
the bleacher.

At the same time, another 80% of the CPO is pumped through another plate heat
exchanger (PHE) and steam heater to increase the CPO temperature to 90 – 130°C (it is a desired
temperature for the reaction between CPO and phosphoric acid). Then, the CPO feed is pumped
to static mixers and the phosphoric acid is dosed at 0.35 – 0.45 kg/ton. Inside there, the intensive
mixing is carried out with the crude oil for precipitation up the gums. The precipitation of gums
will ease the later filtration process, avoid the scale formation in deodorizer and heating surface.
The degumming CPO then will go into bleacher.

In the bleacher, there are 20% slurry and 80% degummed CPO will mix together and the
bleaching process occur. The practice of bleaching involves the addition of bleaching earth to
remove any undesirable impurities (all pigments, trace metals, oxidation products) from CPO
and this improves the initial taste, final flavor and oxidative stability of product. It also helps to
overcome problems in subsequent processing by adsorption of soap traces, pro-oxidant metal
ions, decomposes peroxides, colour reduction, and adsorbs other minor impurities. The
temperature inside the bleacher must be around 100°C – 130°C to get the optimum bleaching
process for 30 minutes of bleaching period. The low pressure steam is purged into bleacher to
agitate the concentrated slurry for a better bleaching condition.

The slurry containing the oil and bleaching earth is then passed through the Niagara filter
to give a clean, free from bleaching earth particles oil. The temperature must be maintain at
around 80 – 120°C for good filtration process. In the Niagara filter, the slurry passes through the
filter leaves and the bleaching earth is trapped on the filter leaves. Actually, the bleaching earth
must be clear from Niagara filter after45minutes in operation to get a good filtration. Bleached
palm oil (BPO) from Niagara filter is then pumped into buffer tank as a temporary storage before
further processing.

Usually, a second check filter, trap filter is used in series with the Niagara filter to double
ensure that no bleaching earth slips occur. The presence of bleaching earth fouls deodorizer,
reduces the oxidative stability of the product oil and acts as a catalyst for dimerizaition and
polymerization activities. So, the “blue test” is carried out for each batch of filtration to ensure
the perfect filtration process. This test indicates whether any leaking is occurring in Niagara filter
or trap filter. Hence, any corrective actions can be taken intermediately.

The BPO comes out from the filter and passes through another series of heat recovery
system, Schmidt plate heat exchanger and spiral (thermal oil: 250 – 305°C) heat exchanger to
heat up the BPO from 80 – 120°C until 210 – 250°C.
The hot BPO from spiral heat exchanger then proceeds to the next stage where the free
fatty acid content and the color are further reduced and more important, it is deodorized to
produce a product which is stable and bland in flavor.

In the pre-stripping and deodorizing column, deacidification and deodorization process


happen concurently. Deodorization is a high temperature, high vacuum and steam distillation
process. A deodorizer operates in the following manner: (1) dearates the oil, (2) heat up the oil,
(3) steam strips the oil and (4)cools the oil before it leaves the system. All materials if contact are
stainless steel.

In the column, the oil is generally heated to approximately 240 – 280°C under vacuum. A
vacuum of less than 10 torr is usually maintained by the use of ejectors and boosters. Heat
bleaching of the oil occurs at this temperature through the thermal destruction of the carotenoid
pigments. The use of direct steam ensures readily removal of residue free fatty acids, aldehydes
and ketones which are responsible for unacceptable odor and flavors. The lower molecular
weight of vaporized fatty acids rises up the column and pulls out by the vacuum system. The
fatty acid vapor leaving the deodorizer are condensed and collected in the fatty acid condenser as
fatty acid. The fatty acids then is cooled in the fatty acid cooler and discharged to the fatty acid
storage tank with temperature around 60 – 80°C as palm fatty acid distillate (PFAD), a by-
product from refinery process.

The bottom product of the pre-stripper and deodorizer is Refined, Bleached, Deodorized
Palm Oil (RBDPO). The hot RBDPO (250 – 280°C) is pumped through Schmidt PHE to transfer
its heat to incoming BPO with lower temperature. Then, it passes through another trap filters to
have the final oil polishing (120 – 140°C) to prevent the earth traces from reaching the product
tank. After that, the RBDPO will pass through the RBDPO cooler and plate heat exchanger to
transfer the heat to the CPO feed. The RBDPO then is pumped to the storage with temperature
50 – 80°C.

Palm Fatty Acid Distillation Plant


The separation of liquid mixture into their several components is one of the major process
of the chemical industries, and distillation is the most widely used method of achieving this end:
it is the key operation of the oil refinery. Though out the chemical industry the demand for pure
products, coupled with a relentless pursuit of greater efficiency, has necessitated continued
research into techniques of distillation. The distillation column is used in this purpose.

The distillation column which have to be designed with a larger range in capacity than
any other types of chemical engineering equipment, with single columns from 0.3 to 10m in
diameter and from 3m to upwards of 75m in height. The purpose of designing is to achieve the
desired product quality at minimum cost, but also to provide constant purity of product even
though there may be some variation in feed composition. The vertical cylindrical column
provides in a compact form, with the minimum of ground utilization, a large number of separate
stages of vaporization and condensation.

In practice, distillation may be carried out by either of two principal methods. The first
method is based on the production of a vapor by boiling the liquid mixture to be separated and
condensing the vapors without allowing any liquid to return to the still. There is then no reflux.
The second method is based on the return of part of condensate to the still under such condition
that this returning liquid is brought into intimate contact with the vapor on their way to the
condenser. Either of these methods may be conducted as a continuous process or as a batch
process.

PFAD Plant Description


a) Feed Raw Material - Palm Fatty Acid Distillate (PFAD)
b) i) Major Product Produced - Distillate Fatty Acids (DFA)
ii) By Product Produced - Precut-Lighter Fatty Acid Component
- Residue

PFAD Process Description


The feed Palm Fatty Acid Distillate (PFAD) from storage tank with temperature around
50 – 100°C will first passes through a heat exchanger network.

The temperature of PFAD will increase to approximately 200 –220°C. Then the hot feed will
enters to the Degasifier for separating some impurities and light fatty acid presented in the feed
under vacuum system.

After that, the heavy components of fatty acid (C10, C12, C14, C16 & C18) come out
from the bottom of Degasifier will go into column C for more separation between light and
heavy components of fatty acids. Before that, there are three distillation column are used in
distillation process. The products of these 3 columns are as follow:

1. Column A: Precut

2. Column B: Distillate Fatty Acid (DFA)

3. Column C: Residue

In column C, the feed with temperature 220 – 255°C will further heating by thermal oil
boiler until temperature become 240 – 300°C under vacuum system. The fatty acids will
evaporate under the vacuum condition and separation of light fatty acid and heavy fatty acid will
occur. At the top of column C, the light fatty acid (precut with lower carbon number <C16) from
the evaporation become vapor is continuously pulled out by the vacuum system. The precut then
passed through the heat exchangers and cooled down by the soft water and PFAD feed before
going to storage.

At the same time, the heavy fatty acid from the bottom of Column C (C16 & C18) is
pumped to Column B for further separation. There is high temperature inside the column B
which is supplied by thermal oil reboiler (290 – 310°C) will contribute to the vaporization of
fatty acids. Therefore the temperature will increase (220 – 250°C) during the distillation process
because of the higher boiling point of the fatty acids feed. The light fatty acid (DFA) from the
vaporization of fatty acid is pulled out by the vacuum system into a reflux holder. When the
refluks is overflow, the excess DFA is pumped to the heat exchangers and cooled down by the
soft water and the PFAD feed. The DFA then is further cooled down in spiral heat exchanger
(hot water/DFA) and plate heat exchanger (Cooling tower water/DFA) before sending to storage
at 60 – 90°C.

On the other hand, the bottom product of column B is residue, the heavy fatty acids
component is pumped to the heat exchanger (Residue/PFAD feed and Residue/Hot Water) before
going to storage tank. The uncompleted distillate will recycles back to column B for further
separation.

Fractionation: Value added process?


The demand for liquid oils has increased in recent years, mainly for salad and cooking
uses and an important property for such oils is low cloud point, which is the temperature at
which turbidity appears when the oil is cooled under standard conditions. Liquids oils with a low
cloud point are desirable because of the widespread use of household refrigeration.

In order to cater for a wide range of markets, the Malaysian refiners start to offer product
which are “harder”(Stearin) and “more liquid”(olein) than palm oil. These are accomplished
trough a simple process of fractionation which is based on two fundamental operations:

1) Crystallization

2) Filtration

Fractionation of palm oil can be described as follow. The triglycerides found in the oil have
different melting points. At certain temperature, the lower melting temperature triglycerides will
crystallize into solid separating the oils into both liquid (Olein) and solid (Stearin) fraction. The
fraction can then be separated by filtration.

It is worth mentioning that in palm oil fractionation, palm olein is the premium product
and the palm stearin is the discount product. In Malaysia, fractionation of palm oil into palm
olein and palm stearin is accomplished using two types of processes which are “Viz Dry” and
“Detergent Fractionation”.

Fractionation Plant Description


a) Feed Raw Material - Refined Bleached deodorised Palm Oil (RBDPO)

b) i) Major Product Produced - Refined Bleached Deodorised Palm Olein (Olein)

ii) By Product Produced - Refined Bleached Deodorised Stearin (Stearin)

Fractionation Process Description

The dry fractionation is used to separate the palm olein and palm stearin from the
RBDPO produced by physical treatment. The RBDPO is passed through the further fractionation
process to get various grade of palm olein and palm stearin. Usually, there are three types of
olein are produced: (1) normal grade olein, (2) super grade olein and (3) olein with cloud point 7
– 8°C.
Crystallization Process

Firstly, the RBDPO feed must pass the quality specification, colour<2.6R and FFA<
0.075 is fed into the heat exchanger. The RBDPO feed is heated up by hot waters around 75°C.
After that the oil is kept homogenized at about 70°C in homogenizes before the start of
crystallization. The idea is to destroy any crystals present and to induce crystallization in a
controlled manner in the crystallizer.

After that, the oil is pumped to the crystallizer. The crystallization system is a batch type
and is equipped with special crystallizers operating alternatively. These crystallizers are made up
of vertical cylindrical vessel full of thermo-regulated water which submerged barrels containing
the oil to be fractionated: each of these barrels is fitted with a mechanical agitator. An automatic
station controls the temerature in the various crystallizers.

The crystallization process is carried out to remove the higher melting glycerides which
cause liquid oils to become cloudy and more viscous at low temperature. There are 3 factors
(temperature, time and agitation), have a fundamental importance on the formation and character
of the crystal:

1. The lowering of temperature causes, because of supersaturating the higher melting


component to separate from a solution.

2. Agitation facilitates the formation of small crystals.

3. Time with a gradual decrease in temperature and stillness, promotes the formation of longer
crystals.

The solution is pumped batch-wise into the crystallizer according to a pre-established


programme. In the crystallizer, the crystal formation and growth occurs as the oil is agitated and
cooled sing chilled water and cool water filled in the jackets or cooling coils of the crystallizer.
Cooling can be governed by controlling either the oil or water temperature.

Filtration Process

After the crystallization process, the slurry from buffer tank passses through the filtration
process for the physical separation between RBD palm stearin and RBD palm olein. Presently,
the membrane filter is used for this filtration. Another alternative for this purpose is by
employing drum filter for separation.
The membrane filter is pressure filter where the filter pack comprising alternatively plates
and frames, or a series of chamber is compressed between one fixed and one movable cover or
bulk-head. The filter media are located between each individual element. Cake will build up in
the hollow space between the elements and fall out of the press when the filter pack is opened.
Composition of the filter pack is by means of electrically driven hydraulic system (75 bar),
which controls the entire mechanical parts of units, head plates, filter plates, plate shifting device
with the built in panel board.

Hydrogenation
Hydrogenation is the most widely used method of all the oil modification processes, to
reduce the degree of unsaturated in the fatty acid groups of the glycerides. It is a catalytic process
whereby the number of double bonds are reduced and by the same time isomerization of the
residual fatty acids is promoted. Liquid oils with unsaturated triglycerides are thus transformed
into fats containing a higher % age of saturated triglycerides: Hydrogenation is often called
hardening of oils and soft fats.

Catalytic hydrogenation, which has been known in fat technology since the beginning of
this century, is used increasingly for the preparation of ‘tailor-made’ fats. Depend on the
condition of the reaction, the basic reaction can be shown as follows:

H H H H

R - C = C - R + H2 R- C – C – R
Hydrogenation

H H

The complex system consists of three phases: liquid oil, gaseous hydrogen and solid
catalyst. Hence there are many different internal surfaces through which the hydrogen molecules
have to pass until they reach the double bonds of the unsaturated triglycerides adsorbed on the
catalyst surface. As soon as the unsaturated bonds are saturated, the triglyceride moves off the
catalyst surface, thus enabling the next unsaturated molecule to be adsorbed and processed.
The overall hydrogenation rage depends on the quality of the reactant involved, the
degree of refining of the oil to be hydrogenated, the activity and nature of the catalyst. In
addition reaction parameters such as hydrogen pressure, catalyst concentration, reaction
temperature, stirring, etc have an influence. In spite of these numerous reaction parameters that
affecting the quality of the desired product, fat-technologist have resolved the operating
conditions required for the preparation of tailor-made fats. This process is established mainly to
add value to by byproducts from the refinery. The raw materials are from refinery: Palm Fatty
Acid Distillate (PFAD) and Refined Bleached Deodorized (RBD). Basically, stearin is the main
raw material for this plant.

Hydrogenation Process Description


There are various kind of oils used as the feed of this plant depends on the market
demands, there are DFA, PFAD, RBDSt, precut and split residue. Firstly, the fatty acid feed
from the storage tank (60 – 70°C) is pumped to the feed preheater. In the feed preheater, the fatty
acid feed is heated up by the hot hydrogenated FA from plant until 140 – 170°C, before entering
the reactor for hydrogenation process.

Then, the hot feed is transferred to the reactor autoclave for reaction. The reactor
consisted of the nickel catalyst which play an important role in the reaction as follow:

1. To avoid modifiers, such as sulphur, likely to give higher “trans” acid contents.
2. Comparatively high temperature to accelerate reduction of poly-unsaturated without
formation of saturates.
3. Reduced the hydrogen gas pressure.
4. Lowering the iodine value to improve stability and good yield of liquid oil when winterized.
5. To remove materials responsible for clouding and solidification at low temperatures.

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