Solvent Extraction

Solvent Extraction is a process which involves extracting oil from oil-bearing materials by

treating it with a low boiler solvent as opposed to extracting the oils by mechanical pressing
methods (such as expellers, hydraulic presses, etc.) The solvent extraction method recovers
almost all the oils and leaves behind only 0.5% to 0.7% residual oil in the raw material. In the
case of mechanical pressing the residual oil left in the oil cake may be anywhere from 6% to
14%. The solvent extraction method can be applied directly to any low oil content raw materials.
It can also be used to extract pre-pressed oil cakes obtained from high oil content materials.
Because of the high percentage of recovered oil, solvent extraction has become the most popular
method of extraction of oils and fats. Fat is one of the essential components of the human diet,
therefore the demand for oils and fats are increasing with the in-crease in population and
standards of living. Today large quantities of oil cakes such as peanut, cottonseed, linseed,
kardiseed, neem, castor, mowha, copra, sunflower, etc. are extracted. Direct extraction of rice
bran, salseed and soybean is also used.
CHOICE OF SOLVENT
. The choice of solvent depends on several important properties such as the good solubility,
efficiency as low or ambient temperatures, low inflammability, boiling point and toxicity. The
solvent must be easily recoverable and it is environmental friendly. It is obviously impossible to
come up with a solvent that fulfills these requirements fully. One solvent that has come very
close to these criteria is hexane. Another method of achieving desired characteristics of the
extracting solvent is to use organic diluents.

hexane
. hexane is extensively used as solvent, because it is cheap, has good oil solubility at relatively
low temperature, has an appropriate boiling temperature, is noncorrosive to metal, inert to the
oil. It is stable under the operating conditions, is immiscible with water, which cause easy
separation of water from the oil, and it is easily and completely removed from the bottom
product with low energy input and without harm of the raw oil. During solvent extraction of the
oilseed, an intensive contact between solvent and press cake is necessary to achieve an complete
removal of oil. g.

Preparation of Raw Material:

For thorough and efficient extraction, it is necessary that each and every oil-bearing cell of the
material be brought in contact with the solvent. Therefore, proper preparation of materials prior
to extraction is very important to ensure this contact. The smaller the material size, the better is
the penetration of the solvent into the oil-bearing cells; but too fine a size will prevent the solvent
form percolating through the mass. Therefore an optimum size is to be maintained for best
extraction. Hence material preparation methods vary from material to material depending on its
oil content, size and physical properties. For high oil content materials (oil content of 15% or
more), the following steps of preparation are recommended to make the material suitable for
penetration of the solvent into the oil cells as well as for best percolation.
Passing the seeds through corrugated roller mills with 3 mm flutes to reduce the size to about
3mm.
Heating the broken material to about 80°C with open steam in temperor and humidifying the
material to raise the moisture content to about 11 to 12%.
Flaking of the humidified material between a pair of plain rolls to 0.25 mm thickness or lower.
Some oilseeds such as cottonseed and soybean can be directly extracted but they are to be
decorticated by special equipment to separate the oil-bearing meats from the hulls. The
decorticating equipment varies from seed to seed. The decorticated meats are tempered, flaked
and the flakes are then sent to extractor after crisping.

Process
During Solvent extraction process, the cake is comes into contact with solvent many times and
after a certain time of adjustment of equilibrium the solvent/oil mixture, called as miscella, is
allowed to drain away from the cake. With each step, the amount of oil in the cake is minimized,
but since it is not possible to remove all of the solvent from the cake a some amount remains
together with oil in the cake. The number of extraction steps depends on the performance of the
extractor. More seven to ten successive wash stages have been used.
The solvent is heated to 50–60°C, but it is important to avoid boiling when hot press cake comes
into contact with the solvent. Press cake comes with high temperature from the mechanical
pressing process, a further temperature increase is only necessary when the extractor starts
working. Temperature is important for the extraction since viscosity of the solvent is reduced so
it can easily flow into oilcake and the solubility of the extract increases with higher temperatures.
The composition of the extract is influenced by the extraction temperature. Important factor
influencing the result of solvent extraction is moisture, which can come from the surface of the
press cake or from poor water/hexane separation after distillation. This moisture can avoid an
optimal penetration of the press cake by the solvent, resulting in low extraction rates and high
residual solvent in the meal. The extraction rate depends on temperature and moisture and also
on the adjustment of equilibrium between diffusion of solvent into cake particles to dissolve oil
and diffusion of oil from within the particles out into the solvent for which a certain time is
necessary. The highest amount of oil is extracted at initial condition of process: 75% in the first
25 min, whereas the total oil yield depends on the further number of extraction steps and the total
extraction time. The extraction of the remaining 25% oil from the press cake takes more time.
SEPARATIONS OF SOLVENT AND OIL
The next step of solvent extraction process is the separation of solvent from oil. After the
solvent-extraction process, the resulting miscella contains 20–30% oil in solvent. For an
economical procedure, the recovery and re-utilization of the solvent is important.The separation
of solvent and oil is achieved by distillation methods by using a series of sills, stripping columns,
and condensers. In general, a two or three-stage process is carried out. In a first stage, hexane
and steam vapors from the desolventizer toaster used for the removal of hexane from the meal
are applied as heat source. In this stage, the mixture reaches temperatures of about 50°C. After
that, the resulting oil enriched liquid is treated in a steam-heated exchanger where the
concentration of hexane decreases to about 5% of the miscella mass at a temperature of about
80°C. The hexane is again send to the extractor for further use.

ADVANTAGES
The advantages of the solvent extraction industry may be summarized as follows
1) The recovery of oil from oilseeds is very high.
2) It can profitably save the oil from damage otherwise going as waste in the oilcakes
3) No damage is done to the nutritional value of the entering materials in the process.
4) Nitrogen of the deoiled meal is supplied in such a form that it is easily made available to the
soil, when used as manure.
5) It is quite possible to revive village ghanis, driven by bullocks in a most efficient manner
when worked in conjunction with a solvent extraction plant.
6) Deoiled meal produced under hygienic conditions of the plant from the edible oilseeds, may
very well be utilized as human food.
7) The production of synthetic vegetable protein fibre is made possible.