Research of the process of pressing black cotton oil from oil fooses

Abstract

In the process of production of vegetable oils, insoluble impurities are removed from the black oil after pressing using sludge traps and filters. Oil sludge separated from the forepress oil has an oil content of up to 50%. For the complete extraction of this oil from the sludge from the sludge separator and filter presses, it is recycled into the upper vats of the roaster of the press units and further for pressing. At the same time, the returnable sludge affects one of the main characteristic of the obtained cottonseed oil – the acid number. Our research has shown that with such a scheme of sludge processing, the sludge acid number obtained after prepressing is 5 mg KOH. This leads to a significant loss of oil to soap stock during oil refining. The solution to this problem is to prevent the sludge separated on the separator from falling back into the frypot, instead the sludge is pressed to produce black cottonseed oil. The degree of influence on the pressing process of influencing factors – the percentage of sludge in the mixture and the duration of mixing the sludge and husk of the mixture - is experimentally studied in this research work. The rational values of these factors are determined. The planning of a two-factor experiment was carried out in order to reveal the effect of the interaction of these factors. The obtained regression equation allows determining with sufficient accuracy the residual oil content of the cake in the investigated range of changes in the influencing factors, which is necessary to optimize the process.