Evaluation of three-phase centrifugal separator machine (Tricanter) for olive oil extraction

Abstract

One of the most important machines in the olive oil extraction line is the horizontal three-phase centrifugal separator machine or Tricanter. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the machine designed on the basis of Tricanter and to evaluate the quality of extracted olive oil. For this purpose, four different olive cultivars from Gilan Province in Iran were used. In this research the rotational speed of the Tricanter machine was tested at three levels of 2 500, 3 000, and 3 500 rpm and the content of water added to olive paste was used at three levels of 10, 20, and 30% of the paste mass. Peroxide value (PV) and percentage of acidity were measured for oil extracted from all four olive cultivars. The results of the analysis of variance (ANOVA) test showed that rotational speed and the content of added water had an effect on the acidity and PV for all samples of olive cultivars. The measured values showed that the best speed for the Tricanter machine is 3 500 rpm. At this rotational speed, the peroxide and acidity values are lower than the standard values.