Datetime: 2022-05-28 01:46:19 Visit: 0
The process of palm oil production involves boiling, crushing, and pressing palm fruit to obtain crude palm oil (CPO) and palm kernel cake (PKC). After crushing and removal of the husk, the remaining kernels are extracted to obtain gross palm oil (CPKO) and palm kernel meal (PKE).
The flesh contains palm oil, while the kernel contains palm kernel oil. Palm oil is the more important of the two, and all of these products are used effectively in food, chemical, and agricultural applications, making palm a highly economic plant.
After primary extraction, the crude palm oil and crude palm kernel oil are refined further in a refining plant to remove free fatty acids, natural pigments, and odors. This produces salad grade oil, refined palm oil (RBD PO), and refined palm kernel oil (RBD PKO), which are nearly colorless and transparent in liquid form and nearly white in solid form. Palm oil can be fractionated further into palm fatty acid distillate (PFAD), palm olein, and palm stearin per the requirements of various users. Palm fruit contains abundant lipase enzymes, so harvested fruits should be processed or killed promptly. Crude palm oil can be easily hydrolyzed, producing free fatty acids and causing the acid value to rise rapidly, which calls for timely refining or fractionation.
Palm oil has a high carotene content (0.05%-0.2%), giving it a deep orange-red color that cannot be effectively removed by alkali refining. Oxidation can be used to remove the pigment and produce a general light-yellow color. Palm oil is a semi-solid at room temperature (27-30°C), with its consistency and melting point largely dependent on the free fatty acid content (FFA). Low FFA content palm oil is known as soft oil in the international market, while high FFA content palm oil is referred to as hard oil.
