DISCUSSION

The main purpose of this experiment was to separate the palm stearin and palm olein from RBD
palm oil through dry fractionation process. Dry fractionation process is a process to isolate the
vegetable oils such as palm oil into two fractions such as olein and stearin from the crystallization
properties of the oils. A typical dry fractionation plant consists of crystallization section and
filtration section. Based on principle, the fractionation by crystallization occurs in two stages.
Firstly, crystallization stage and followed by separation stage. Crystallization is the process when
solid crystal was obtained in liquid mixture during cooling process. Crystallization process can be
classified into two steps which are nucleation and crystal growth. In dry fractionation, the oil is
partially crystallized by controlled cooling of the molten feed to the desired fractionation
temperature, holding the partially crystallized slurry for crystal growth followed by filtration using
a membrane filter press (Gunstone,2001). Firstly, RBD palm oil was being heated up during
crystallization stage. Next, it was being cooled in controlled cooling program inside crystallizers.
The product of this stage will become slurry (semi-liquid mixture) of crystal and liquid oil. In
filtration section, the slurry will be transferred into this section and separate the olein which is the
liquid oil and stearin which is the crystal.

RBD palm oil was heated up until the temperature reached 60˚C. The oil was kept homogenized
for about 60˚C before crystallization starts. This process is very important in order to avoid the
presence of unwanted crystal and to remove previous thermal. Other than that, to get crystallization
process in a control manner in the crystallizer. The heated oil was then pumped into the crystallizer
that is batch type. The crystallizer operated was equipped with a special component which are the
mechanical agitator and temperature inside the crystallizer are controlled by thermostat. The oil
was cooled by automatic station control inside crystallizer and then surround into a mixture of
slurry crystal and liquid oil. The mixture of slurry and liquid oil was continued to filtration process.
This process functions to separate the olein from the crystal. RBD-palm oil was fractionated into
stearin (the cake, as solid phase) and olein (the filtrate, as liquid phase).

The formation of RBD Palm olein and stearin are influenced by these three factors which are
temperature, agitation and time. RBD palm oil was heated until the temperature reached 60˚C so
that there will be no presence of crystal. The higher the temperature, the slower the speed of the
stirrer. This will help in the formation of stearin (cake) to be easier. The effects of agitation on
growth rates of individual crystals were dependent on temperature of operation (Serpil and
Richard, 2005). In a crystallizer, higher agitation rate will cause a higher nucleation rate (more
crystals produced) and increase in total crystallization rate. The function of agitation during
fractionation was to prevent the crystal from aggregates and increase the heat transfer. The yield
of stearin has great influence by the temperature of crystallization. The higher the temperature, the
lower the amount of yield of stearin fractions. Low amount of crystals are produced in a high
temperature thus, the amount of solid fractions will be reduced.

For RBD Palm Oil Feed, RBD Palm Olein and RBD Palm Stearin the sample are being triplicate
and undergoes iodine value analysis. The iodine value represent the mass of iodine in grams that
is consumed by 100 grams of a chemical substance. The iodine value measures the degree of
unsaturation or double bonds of oils and fats (Thomas and Alfred, 2002). This unsaturation is in
the form of double bonds, which react with iodine compounds. The higher the iodine number, the
more C=C bonds are present in the fat. It also indicates the ease of oxidation of oils and fats
(Guided Wave Incorporated, 2008). Iodine test is important in palm oil industry and id is follows
the fractionation process. There are several method to determine iodine value such as Huebl’s
iodine, Wijs iodine value after and Iodine by H.P. Kaufmann. The method that being used in the
experiment is Wijs iodine value after where iodine chloride is added and were titrated with sodium
thiosulphate. In the Wijs method fat or oil is dissolved in chloroform and treated with excess iodine
chloride and glacial Acetic acid solution (Wijs's reagent). Then, potassium mixture is added which
reacts with remaining free iodine chloride to form potassium chloride. The solution is titrated
against sodium thiosulfate to determine the concentration of free iodine which known as back
titration.

Based on Table 2, 3 and 4, the results calculated and recorded for each sample. The volume of
RBD sample used in the experiment is 8kg. The table shows the volume of thiosulphate solution
used for blank solution (V1) and determination (V2), mass of sample test and iodine value. The
average iodine value calculated for Palm Oil Feed, Palm Olein and Palm Stearin were 55.41, 46.12
and 55.63 respectively. The consensus values and uncertainties for iodine values were 52-56 for
palm oil feed, 56-64 for palm olein and 48-56 for palm stearin. The iodine value obtained in the
experiment is in the theoretical range for palm oil feed and palm sterin but for palm olein value is
not obey the theoretical value but the differences is quite small. This indicates that there is present
of double bond in the oil. For palm olein, the error that may occur during titration process affected
the iodine value. Theoretically, Palm Olein has the highest iodine value as it has the highest degree
of unsaturation and fully liquid form at ambient temperature followed by Palm Oil feed and the
lowest iodine value is Palm Stearin due to the stearin is in a solid fraction from the fractionation
of palm oil (Lim, T.K., 2010). The result obtained does not obey the theory as errors occur during
the experiment.

The result of iodine value was compared to the standard value of refinery quality from Appendix
1. The iodine value for Palm Olein and Palm Stearin was 46.12 and 55.63 respectively. Based on
Appendix 1, the given iodine value for 9 hours process cycle duration for Palm Olein is 57 %
which almost similar to results obtained. For Palm Stearin, the given iodine value is 34% which
are lower than the result obtained. The results are higher than expected result due to presence of
unsaturated oil in stearin that makes the degree of unsaturation become higher thus that affecting
the iodine value.

The production yield% can be calculated by dividing the weight of olein produced with weight of
RBDPO feed and multiples by 100 to get the value in percentage. The production yield represent
efficiency of the plant. Oil palm management literature refers to the “site yield potential” (Tinker,
1984, Goh et al., 2000) and was defined as the yield obtained on a specified site. The weight of
RBD Palm Oil feed used in the experiment is 8.0 kg while the weight of RBD Palm Olein is 4.0
kg. The production yield of the process is 50.0%. The fractionation of the process is inversely
proportional to the temperature. As the time increase, the temperature is decrease. Fractionation of
palm olein and sterin has high POP triglyceride.

The errors occur in the experiment is parallax error during reading the pipette. It is due to the
viewing angle is not perpendicular to the pipette. Make sure the eye level is perpendicular to the
pipette during taking the reading. Next, make sure the oil is in liquid form during titration and all
the impurities has been removed. Finally, make sure the temperature is maintain at the reference
temperature in order to get the accurate iodine value.
REFERENCES

Guided Wave Incorporated. Application (2008). Note—Iodine value with Model 412 [online].
Accessed 28 October 2019. URL: http://www.guided-wave.com/support/notes/

Lim, T.K. (2010). "palm+stearin" Medicinal and non-medicinal edible plants.

LIPICO technologies (2018), Dry Fractionation Plant Process Description. Retrieved October 30,
2019 from http://www.lipico.com/processes_dry_fractionation_plant.html

Ralph E. Timms (26 January 2005), Fractional crystallization – the fat modification process for
the 21st century. Retrieved October 30, 2019 from
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/ejlt.200401075

Saw Mei Huey, Chong Chiew Let, Yeoh Chee Beng, (2018), New Developments in Palm Oil
Fractionation. Retrieved October 29, 2019 from
http://palmoilis.mpob.gov.my/publications/POD/pod62-saw.pdf

Serpil Metin and Richard W. Hartel (2005), Crystallization of Fats and Oils. Retrieved October
30, 2019 from https://www.academia.edu/40679743/2_Crystallization_of_Fats_and_Oils

Thomas and Alfred (2002). "Fats and Fatty Oils". Ullmann's Encyclopedia of Industrial
Chemistry. Weinheim: Wiley-VCH. doi:10.1002/14356007.a10_173

Tinker, 1984 P.B. Tinker Site-specific yield potentials in relation to fertilizer use A.v. Peter (Ed.),
Nutrient Balances and Fertilizer Needs in Temperate Agriculture, International Potash
Institute, Bern, Switzerland (1984), pp. 193-208