Operation and Monitoring of Vegetable Oil Refineries

When operating a vegetable oil refinery, it’s important to measure the performance so as to reach the minimum use of energy and consumables and maximize the yield. Even small improvements in efficiency can result in big savings by the end of the year.

Acid is used in neutralizing to remove calcium and magnesium ions bonded to phospholipids. But adding more acid than necessary means that more sodium hydroxide must be used to neutralize the excess acid which raises the soap level of the oil, increases losses and requires more water for washing the oil.

Replacing water washing of oil with silica treatment to absorb soap and phosphatides can be economical is some circumstances.

In deodorizing there is an optimum level of steam injection into heat transfer and buffer compartments. These compartments are often operating well below the deodorizing temperature so not much deodorization is taking place there. You need the right balance of steam injection into the deodorizing and the other compartments to get the best possible performance.

In the future heat pumps could start to play a role in vegetable oil refining recovering low grade and boosting the temperature of the operating fluid up to 300°C which could then be used for a wide range of heating duties.