subject: What Are The Main Processes Involved At An Oil Refinery Plant? [print this page] The vegetable oil is obtained form the sources like groundnuts, sunflower seeds, canola seeds, soybean and cotton seeds. Apart from producing cooking oil, the vegetable oil is refined to produce bio-diesel, the environment-friendly fuel expected to replace the environment-harming fuels in the future.
A number of processes are involved in the refining of vegetable oil or any other type of oil. Here is a discussion about some of the main processes involved in vegetable oil refining.
Neutralization
Neutralization at a vegetable oil refinery plant is done to make it free from the free fatty acids. For this, the oil is heated in dedicated containers and vessels and caustic soda is added to it. The thermic fluid coils are used to heat the oil up to 60 degree Celsius. The oil in the specialized neutralization vessel is constantly stirred. A chemical reaction takes place leading to the formation of soap stock which is allowed to settle down at the bottom.
Bleaching
The neutralized vegetable oil is transferred to the bleaching vessels, where bleaching is done to remove the color of the oil. Carbon black is one of the most popular bleaching agents used in this process at a vegetable oil refinery. The thermic fluid coils are again used to heat the oil up to 110 degree Celsius. A steam boiler too can be used for heating purposes. Constant stirring leads to the formation of bleached oil.
Deodorizing
As the name suggests, deodorizing at an oil refinery plant is done to remove the odor from the bleached vegetable oil. Before transferring the bleached oil to deodorizing vessels, it is filtered to remove the bleaching chemicals. A temperature of more than 110 degree Celsius is obtained using thermic fluid coils to heat the bleached oil in the deodorizing vessel. Live steam is supplied to the oil under complete vacuum conditions. The final product gets freed from odor and is passed through filters to obtain completely refined oil.
Some of the other processes at a vegetable oil refinery plant include degumming and dewaxing. Each of these processes is performed in specialized vessels to obtain the best results without any safety threat. What is obtained finally is the high grade oil suitable for various applications.
