Neutralisation

INTRODUCTION TO TECHNOLOGY

Neutralisation of edible oils is a key step in the refining process, aimed at removing free fatty acids (FFA), phospholipids, and other impurities that affect the quality, taste, and shelf life of the oil. This is a crucial activity to obtain a final product that can have optimal characteristics both from an organoleptic point of view and in terms of chemical stability. The process is also commonly known as alkali or chemical refining and is essential for producing high-quality edible oils.

The complete neutralisation is a five-steps process:

1. Degumming – It’s an optional pre-treatment that removes phospholipids and gums using water and acid (generally citric acid or phosphoric acid, depending on the kind of crude oil), commonly used for crude soybean, sunflower, rape seed, rice bran oils, etc etc.
2. Neutralisation – The addition of an caustic solution that reacts with free fatty acids (FFA) to form soapstocks, which can be separated easily.
3. Separation of soapstocks – This step is important because soapstocks, containing neutralized FFAs and impurities, are removed by centrifugation or sedimentation, becoming a useful by-product that can be further processed into soap, acid oil or used in animal feed.
4. Washing – Carried out using hot water, its goal is to remove residual soap and caustic from neutralized oil, ensuring that no unwanted chemical residues remain in the final product.
5. Drying – The oil is dried under vacuum to remove moisture, preventing oxidation and rancidity.

The complete sequence of the neutralization process may differs depending on the different soft oils, due to their varying chemical compositions, melting points, impurity levels, etc.

The Neutralisation process  is mainly used for soft oils like soybean, sunflower, corn, canola, rice bran or any other similar oils (high in unsaturated fatty acids) rather than hard oils like palm oil, palm kernel oil and coconut oil (high in saturated fatty acids). Generally, hard oils request a simpler process called dry degumming because in this kind of crude oils there is a minimum concentration of phospholipids that need to be removed, although for some special applications chemical neutralization could be required as well for such oils.

After the neutralisation, the soft oils undergo further refining steps: Bleaching, Deodorisation and – if needed – Winterization.

Neutralisation is a process that, in addition to improving the organoleptic qualities, purity and chemical stability of edible oils, allows these results to be obtained in such a way as to make the final product compliant, ensuring that oil meets regulatory limits for acidity, contaminants, and heavy metals and reducing harmful compounds such as pesticides, mycotoxins, and oxidized substances.

ADVANTAGES OF CMB TECHNOLOGY

CMB has an internal workshop with the most sophisticated production technologies and state-of-the-art engineering, which are essential to build Neutralisation plants capable of optimising resources. CMB technology makes it possible to process a wide variety of feedstocks, obtaining the maximum result in terms of production quality, allowing optimal sustainability from both an economic and environmental point of view, minimising production waste and optimising energy consumption. CMB also pays great attention to the quality of construction materials, which must be able to withstand the constant action of acids and caustic soda, maintaining extremely high reliability over time and reducing maintenance interventions to a minimum.

Summing up the main advantages of the CMB Neutralization systems, they can be summarized as follows:

• Ability to process various feedstock
• Higher yield and lower operating cost
• Optimum usage of chemicals
• Less environmental impact – minimum effluent or waste
• Simple to manage
• Reliable
• Fully automated process unit

Discover more contacting an expert CMB consultant to get all the information you need. Write now to: info@cmb.it, we will be able to give you the right solution to boost your business.