Oil palm fruit, also known as palm fruit, contains 45% to 50% oil. Originally from Africa, it is now found worldwide. In terms of production, consumption, and international trade, palm oil is currently the world's largest vegetable oil variety. Oil yield: depending on quality and region, crude palm oil is 20%-22%, and palm kernel oil is around 2%. A palm oil refining equipment manufacturer briefly introduces the function and technical process of a complete set of palm oil refining equipment. Components in palm oil other than triglycerides are called impurities. The function of palm oil refining equipment is to remove impurities from edible oil. Palm oil refining equipment does not remove all impurities, but rather selectively removes impurities from crude palm oil, maintaining the biological characteristics of the oil and retaining or extracting useful substances.

Based on the composition and properties of impurities in palm oil, they can be divided into three categories:

(1) Insoluble solid impurities, such as silt, cake powder, fiber, clay, catalysts, etc.

(2) Pectin-soluble impurities, such as free fatty acids, sterols, vitamin E, pigments, vitamins, gossypol, etc.

(3) Volatile impurities, such as moisture, alcohols, hydrocarbon solvents, off-odor substances, etc.

Most impurities are harmful to the quality and storage safety of palm oil. For example, moisture not only affects the transparency of the oil but also promotes hydrolysis and rancidity; free fatty acids affect flavor and promote spoilage; phospholipids can make the oil cloudy and produce black precipitates, foaming, bitterness, etc., when heated; various pigments directly affect the color of the oil and also promote rancidity; the presence of colloids, sulfur and phosphorus compounds, soaps, and heavy metal salts makes subsequent processes such as stripping difficult for deacidification.

Palm Oil Refining Equipment

(1) Palm Oil Degumming: Removes phospholipids, mucus, resins, proteins, sugars, trace metals, etc., from crude oil, generally using hydration and acid refining methods.

(2) Palm Oil Deacidification: Removes free fatty acids, acidic pigments, sulfides, insoluble impurities, and trace metals from the oil using food-grade alkali neutralization.

(3) Palm Oil Washing: Washes away soapberry and water-soluble impurities remaining in the oil after deacidification.

(4) Palm Oil Dehydration: Removes water from the refined oil using heating and vacuum drying methods.

(5) Palm Oil Decolorization: Removes various pigments, colloids, oxides, etc., from the oil using adsorbents such as kaolin, aluminum silicate, and activated carbon.

(6) Palm Oil Deodorization: Removes low-molecular-weight odor substances, free fatty acids, monoglycerides, glycolipids, sulfides, and thermal decomposition products of pigments from the oil using vacuum lifting principles.

(7) Palm oil dewaxing or degreasing: mainly by freezing, crystallization or winterization crystallization, and fractional distillation to remove wax and grease from the oil.