Production of refined red palm-pressed fibre oil from physical refining
pilot plant
Abstract
Palm-pressed fiber oil (PPFO) is unique as it contains higher amount of
carotenoids, vitamin E (tocotrienols & tocopherols) and other
phytonutrients (squalene and sterols) as compared to crude palm oil
(CPO). However, crude PPFO has high phosphorus content and free fatty
acid (FFA) and at the same time low in deterioration of bleachability
index (DOBI) that requires specific refining steps for achieving a good
quality oil properties. The physical refining pilot plant scale was
developed, involved a combination of step including wet and acid
degumming and bleaching followed by high vacuum deacidification. The
optimum refining conditions comprises wet degumming using 5.0 wt/wt% of
distilled water at 90°C for 20 min, acid degumming using 0.5 wt% of
phosphoric acid at 90°C for 10 min, bleaching using 1.0 wt% of natural
bleaching earth at 105°C for 20 min, and deacidification at 160°C and
0.001 mmHg. A significant reduction of phosphorus content of 97% (from
633±83 ppm to 11±2 ppm) and FFA of 91% (from 5.30±0.19% to 0.35 ±
0.09%) were achieved in the pilot scale study. The DOBI value of
refined red PPFO improved from 2.02 ± 0.18 to 2.68 ± 0.04. Besides, the
carotenoids (986±55 ppm) and vitamin E (1075±64 ppm) in refined red PPFO
were preserved by applying the mild temperature of deacidification. The
pilot scale results establish a significant contribution to the
feasibility of the refined red palm-pressed oil.