All vegetable oils (olive and seeds oils) must be treated to obtain edible oils.

The main processes involved are: seeds preparation and conditioning, seeds pressing, extraction by solvents.

Vegetable oils refining processes

Degumming: to remove phosphatides by acid treatment.
Neutralisation: to remove acid and free fatty acids.
Winterisation: to remove waxes coming from seeds shell residue.
Bleaching: to remove coloured compounds and ingrease the resistance of the oil to oxidation.
Deodorization: to remove bad smelling compounds.
Physical refining: innovative technology to neutralize the oil by vacuum steam distillation of free fatty acid and simultaneous deodorization.

 

Further special processes

Fatty acids distillation.
Fatty acids fractionation.
Soap-stock decomposition.
Soap-stock (sodium salts of free fatty acid coming from neutralization process) decomposition by sulphuric acid to obtain fatty acids to be reprocessed.

 

Hydrolytic splitting of vegetable oils

Hydrolytic splitting of vegetable oils is a process operating at 30 bar to obtain free fatty acids and glycerine.

Glycerine concentration and distillation

Glycerine concentration and distillation to obtain pharmaceutical degree glycerine.

Hydrogenation of vegetable oils

Hydrogenation plant to increase the Iodine number of the oil to produce vegetable margarines.

Fatty acids methylation

Fatty acids methylation to obtain fatty acids methyl ester which is one of the components of the additives for detergent lubricant oils and for the “enzyme” operation in the textile industry.

Biodiesel production process

Recently DAMMER has been involved in the optimization of this process studying in laboratory pilot plant the kinetics of the reaction in order to find the best operating conditions for the basic reaction as well as for separation and purification systems.

Biodiesel is a fuel with chemical and physical propertis very similar to the diesel fuel but produced from vegetable oils (mainly rape oil).

The production process is a trans-esterification of rape oil with methylalcohol in presence of alkalyne catalysts.

The reaction leads to the production of fatty acids methyl esters (> 99%) and glycerine as by product.

The use of biodiesel, if compared with diesel fuel, allows the reduction of gaseous emissions produced by motors and dangerous for the health.