OIL EXTRACTION

INTRODUCTION

 Cooking oil consists of edible oils

derived from olives, peanuts, and
safflowers, to name just a few of the
many plants that are used. Liquid at
room temperature, cooking oils are
sometimes added during the
preparation of processed foods. They
are also used to fry foods and to make
salad dressing.
HISTORY

 People in many regions began to process oils

thousands of years ago, utilizing whatever food
stuffs they had on hand to obtain oils for a
variety of cooking purposes. Early peoples
learned to use the sun, a fire, or an oven to heat
oily plant products until the plants exuded oil
that could then be collected
 The Chinese and Japanese produced soy oil as
early as 2000 B.C. , while southern Europeans
had begun to produce olive oil by 3000 B.C. In
Mexico and North America, peanuts and
sunflower seeds were roasted and beaten into a
paste before being boiled in water; the oil that
rose to the surface was then skimmed off
 Africans also grated and beat palm
kernels and coconut meat and then
boiled the resulting pulp, skimming the
hot oil off the water. Some oils have
become available only recently, as
extraction technology has improved
 Corn oil first became available in the
1960s. Cotton oil, watermelon seed oil,
grapeseed oil, and others are now being
considered as ways to make use of
seeds that were, until recently,
considered waste.
 The first efforts to increase output were
undertaken independently in China,
Egypt, Greece, and Rome, among other
places. Using a spherical or conical stone
mortar and pestle, vertical or horizontal
millstones, or simply their feet, people
began to crush vegetable matter to
increase its available surface area
 The Greeks and Romans improved this
process by introducing edge runners to
grind and a winch or screw to operate a
lever press. Their method was used
throughout the Middle Ages.
 Refinements of this approach included a stamper
press that was invented in Holland in the 1600s
and used until the 1800s to extract oil, a roll mill
invented by English engineer John Smeaton in
1750 to crush vegetable matter more efficiently,
and the hydraulic press, invented by Joseph
Bramah in England.
 The first improved screw press was invented by V.
D. Anderson in the United States in 1876. His
Expeller (a trade name) continuously operated a
cage press. When vegetable matter was placed in
Anderson's closed press, the resultant oil drained
out of slots in the side. A screw increased the
pressure through the cage toward a restricted
opening
 OIL EXTRACTION METHODS
Sr Method of Employed % Remarks
. oil for residual
N extraction oil in
o. meal/cak
e

1 Solvent Low oil 0.5 %- Oil is solubilized by solvent (n-hexane).

extraction seeds 1.0%
(less than
30% oil)

2 Full/Hard High oil 4.5 %- Seeds are passed through continuous screw press.
pressing seeds 7.5%
(greater
than 30%
oil)

3 Prepress- High oil 0.75%- 16 %- 20% oil is extracted by screw press and the cake is
solvent seeds 1.25% then treated with solvent to achieve further extraction.
extraction (greater
than 30%
oil)
RAW MATERIALS

 The average bottle of cooking oil contains vegetable

oil, with no additives, preservatives, or special
flavorings.
 The oil comes from various parts of plants, in most
cases from what are commonly called seeds (including
sunflower, palm kernel, safflower, cotton, sesame, and
grapeseed oils) or nuts (including peanut, soybean,
almond, and walnut oils).
 A few special cases involve merely squeezing the oil
from the flesh of the fruit of the plant. For example,
coconut oil comes from the coconut's white meat, palm
oil from the pulp of the palm fruit, and olive oil from
the flesh of fresh olives. Atypically, corn oil is derived
from the germ (embryo) of the kernel
OIL EXTRACTION PROCESS
 Some vegetable oils, such as olive, peanut, and
some coconut and sunflower oils, are cold-
pressed.
 This method, which entails minimal processing,
produces a light, flavorful oil suitable for some
cooking needs.
 Most oil sources, however, are not suitable for
cold pressing, because it would leave many
undesirable trace elements in the oil, causing it
to be odiferous, bitter tasting, or dark. These oils
undergo many steps beyond mere extraction to
produce a bland, clear, and consistent oil
CLEANING AND GRINDING

1 Incoming oil seeds are passed over

magnets to remove any trace metal
before being dehulled, deskinned, or
otherwise stripped of all extraneous
material. In the case of cotton, the
ginned seeds must be stripped of their
lint as well as dehulled. In the case of
corn, the kernel must undergo milling
to separate the germ.
2 The stripped seeds or nuts are then
ground into coarse meal to provide more
surface area to be pressed. Mechanized
grooved rollers or hammer mills crush the
material to the proper consistency. The
meal is then heated to facilitate the
extraction of the oil. While the procedure
allows more oil to be pressed out, more
impurities are also pressed out with the oil,
and these must be removed before the oil
can be deemed edible
PRESSING
3 The heated meal is then fed
continuously into a screw press,
which increases the pressure
progressively as the meal passes
through a slotted barrel. Pressure
generally increases from 68,950 to
20,6850 kilopascals as the oil is
squeezed out from the slots in the
barrel, where it can be recovered
EXTRACTING ADDITIONAL OIL WITH
SOLVENTS

4 Soybeans are usually not pressed at all

before solvent extraction, because they have
relatively little oil, but most oil seeds with
more oil are pressed and solvent-treated.
 After the initial oil has been recovered from
the screw press, the oil cake remaining in the
press is processed by solvent extraction to
attain the maximum yield.
 A volatile hydrocarbon (most commonly
hexane) dissolves the oil out of the oil cake,
which is then recovered by distilling the light
solvent out
REMOVING SOLVENT TRACES

5 Ninety percent of the solvent

remaining in the extracted oil simply
evaporates, and, as it does, it is
collected for reuse. The rest is
retrieved with the use of a stripping
column. The oil is boiled by steam,
and the lighter hexane floats
upward. As it condenses, it, too, is
collected
REFINING THE OIL

6 The oil is next refined to remove color, odor,

and bitterness. Refining consists of heating
the oil to between 107 and 188 degrees
Fahrenheit (40 and 85 degrees Celsius) and
mixing an alkaline substance such as sodium
hydroxide or sodium carbonate with it. Soap
forms from the undesired fatty acids and the
alkaline additive, and it is usually removed
by centrifuge. The oil is further washed to
remove traces of soap and then dried.
7 Oils are also degummed at this time
by treating them with water heated to
between 188 and 206 degrees
Fahrenheit (85 and 95 degrees
Celsius), steam, or water with acid.
The gums, most of which are
phosphatides, precipitate out, and the
dregs are removed by centrifuge.
8 Oil that will be heated (for use in
cooking) is then bleached by filtering
it through fuller's earth, activated
carbon, or activated clays that absorb
certain pigmented material from the
oil. By contrast, oil that will undergo
refrigeration (because it is intended
for salad dressing, for example) is
winterized—rapidly chilled and
filtered to remove waxes. This
procedure ensures that the oil will not
partially solidify in the refrigerator
9 Finally, the oil is deodorized. In this
process, steam is passed over hot oil
in a vacuum at between 440 and 485
degrees Fahrenheit (225 and 250
degrees Celsius), thus allowing the
volatile taste and odor components to
distill from the oil. Typically, citric
acid at. 01 percent is also added to oil
after deodorization to inactivate trace
metals that might promote oxidation
within the oil and hence shorten its
shelf-life.
PACKAGING THE OIL

 10The completely processed oil is

then measured and poured into
clean containers, usually plastic
bottles for domestic oils to be sold in
supermarkets, glass bottles for
imports or domestic oils to be sold in
specialty stores, or cans for imports
(usually olive oil).