Mecpro has achieved a major breakthrough in the extraction of oil from Empty Fruit Bunch and Palm Fibre by using both flammable and non-flammable solvents. This is a revolutionary technology for the Palm Oil Industry, not only to make it energy efficient and environment friendly, but also to provide value addition from downstream processes. This is a unique process to extract oil from raw material with 50% moisture.
A virtuous cycle of growth in the Palm Oil Milling and Refining sector that is already underway is likely to continue. This will be driven by the robust performance possible through ingenious technological innovations. To achieve better recovery of oil from a Palm Oil Mill, several technological innovations have been developed which will enhance by up to 1% the FFB processed. Besides, significant reduction in effluent and oil content in the effluent has been made possible by these innovations.
Palm Fibre is a by-product of a palm oil mill, which contains 4 to 8% oil. Currently it is used as boiler fuel.
The method is to extract the oil using solvent and send back the hot de-oiled fiber for fuel on a continuous basis without any interruption in the availability of fuel to the boiler. The oil extracted is as CPO with greater than 2 DOBI and rich with nutritional value of carotene > 2200 PPM, Tocols > 2200 PPM, Sterols >3000 PPM and Squalene > 1200 PPM. This can be converted to highly nutritious refined oil or red palm olein and used for cosmetic applications, and for extraction of vitamins to enhance the profitability as compared to CPO. The fibre oil is a rich source of health supplements to meet the daily vitamin requirements of people. It is also one of the best suited oils for the pharmaceutical and nutraceutical industries for the extraction of Carotene, Tocopherol and Phythosterols.
The de-oiled fiber can be used for different applications other than fuel since its shelf life is increased by the removal of oil.
The payback period for the capital investment of the project is between 1 to 4 years depending upon the capacity of the plant and the prevailing CPO price.
The extractor is capable of handling flammable and non-flammable solvent processing at 90oC. In such cases the oil extraction will be faster and fibre bunch, nut and sand oil will be extracted in this process.
Some of the improvements in technology incorporated are as follows:
Mecpro has incorporated 5 patented technologies for processing palm fibre to reduce the utility consumption, increase the quality of the product and by-products, make it environment friendly and ensure full safety of operation.