EDIBLE OIL HEATING/COOLING SYSTEM FOR DEODORIZATION PROCESS

We offer integrated systems for heating & cooling of edible oil during the oil refining process.

During oil refining, edible oil is neutralized & bleached at 60 OC. It is then heated to 110 OC. At this temperature, the oil is deaerated, & then further heated to 260 OC in the deodourization tank. Heating in the deodourization tank is done by means of thermic fluid circulation through heating coils. After maintaining the temperature for the desired time, the oil is cooled down to 70 OC for further processing.

The heating & cooling operations as carried out by the conventional method described above are highly energy oriented & time consuming, leading to degradation of product quality due to overheating for a prolonged period of time. On the one hand, enormous amount of heat is added during the heating stage, requiring very high flow rates of heated thermic fluid, while during the cooling stage, all the heat added needs to be removed, requiring very large flow rates of cooling water.

To overcome the problems of energy wastage & process inefficiency described above, a combined heating/cooling system is offered, which consists of a battery of corrugated tube heat exchanger modules, connected in series.

The neutralized & bleached oil is preheated in the heat exchanger to the deaeration temperature, removed for deaeration & then returned back to the heat exchanger for further heating upto around 230 OC. Final heating upto 260 OC is then carried out using thermic fluid in a separate heat exchanger battery.

After the deodourization step is over, the hot oil is passed back through the heat exchanger where it preheats the fresh feed of cold oil, & itself gets cooled down to around 100-120 OC. Further cooling to 70 OC is carried out using cooling tower water in a separate heat exchanger battery.

Approximately 75-80% of the total heat available can be recovered in this manner. Further, the process being continuous, is less time consuming, & hence optimally suited for standardization of product quality.

Instruments for oil flow rate measurement of both streams, & temperature measurement at various points, are provided for process standardization.