SOLVENT EXTRACTION PLANTS
Solvent Extraction Plants are used to extract oil by using chemicals. These plants use cake as the raw material, which is obtained from the oil press section. An organic solvent is used to dissolve the cake's or seed's oil content after the process of dipping or spraying, which ensures that the oil content is in close contact with the feeding material. After this, the solvent is vaporized out and the oil is collected. In these plants, the vaporized solvent is recycled. Generally, Hexane (a petroleum by-product) is used as the solvent. There are many Solvent Extraction Plants manufacturers, who use the quality assured materials and latest technology in the fabrication process. Generally, these plants are designed especially for extracting oil directly from:
- Oilseeds that contain less than 20% oil such as Soybean after the process of flaking
- Pre-pressed or fully pressed seed cake that contain over 20% oil such as cotton seed, palm kernel, sunflower, copra, Castor, peanuts, and others
Most of the edible oil manufacturers now-a-days use the horizontal extractors that operate on the principle of counter current, moving bed. It has varying height of bed and varying speed mechanism that allows absolute extraction by perfect penetration & percolation of the solvent. The standard procedures that are followed in the
solvent extraction process are listed below:
- Dip oil-rich flake or pre-pressed cake into solvent
- Dissolve vegetable oil into chemical solvent
- Filter solid material
- Evaporate oil mixed solvent to separate oil and solvent
- Cool and recycle solvent
- Further process oil and cake.
The best attribute of the solvent extraction plant is that it offers simple change-over of the process materials. These plants also find usage in the extraction of various useful solvents in assorted industries. Some of the salient features of the standard solvent extraction plants are:
- Available in solid - liquid and liquid - liquid extraction systems
- Uses various solvents polar or non polar or a combination of both
- Versatility to process all types of seeds, bran or oil cakes