Dry fractionation is the process in which separation from solid liquid portion of the oil

is achieved by a process of gradual cooling preheated oil (MPOB, 2010). The process
actually separates RBD palm oil into olein and stearin. A typical plant consists of
crystallisation and filtration sections. During crystallisation, RBD palm oil is being heated up
first and then cooled under a controlled cooling program inside the crystallisers. At the end of
this cooling program, the oil becomes slurry of crystal and liquid oil. The slurry is then fed
into the filtration section which consists of membrane filters to separate the olein which is the
liquid oil) and stearin which is the crystal.
RBD (Refined, Bleached and Deodorized)-palm oil was obtained from local refinery.
Then the oil was subjected for dry fractionation the stearin (POs) and the olein fraction. Palm
stearin and palm mid fraction are obtained by dry fractionation and present as by-products in
which both are the hard fractions (the solid phase after a filter press separation). Palm stearin
is the solid phase of RBD-palm oil fractionation while palm mid fraction is the solid phase of
palm olein fractionation. Even though both palm stearin and palm mid fraction are the solid
phases of the dry fractionation process, it seems that they have different physicochemical
properties. The main reason is RBD-palm oil and palm olein which served as raw materials
for dry fractionation have different levels of unsaturation. The multistage dry fractionation of
RBD-palm oil is depicted on figure below.

Figure 4
Before run the experiment a graph has been constructed to give a better view about
the process which indicates the temperature of the oil from 80 oC to 20 oC. Also each stage

of heating and cooling has different time to let the growth of crystal completely done. The
speed of agitator decrease as the temperature of oil decrease to facilitate formation of crystal.
To obtained the high crystal which stearin cake the oil need to undergo several process which
first extreme heating of oil and then rapid cooling with sufficient agitation. The RBD palm oil
has been heated up to 85OC to 80 OC and maintain the temperature for 1 hour and 45 minutes
to generate the energy potential in oil to expend the low crystal in oil and the speed of
agitation is 50 Hz. Since the oil is a poor heat conductor, gentle agitation is essential to
dissipate the heat without fragmenting any of the crystals. Heating process also required to
dry the moisture content and make the oil become thicken. Also to destroy the existing crystal
in the oil. The nucleation and crystal growth start in this stage which to make the base of
crystals. It is continued to growth and the changing phase from (alpha) to (beta prime)
begins to happen.

The polymorphs are classified into three crystallographic types which are (alpha),
(beta prime) and (beta), according to their hydrocarbon subcell packing. The (alpha)
crystal can naturally occurred in the oil which it is least stable polymorph and has the lowest
melting point, melting enthalpy and density while the (beta-prime) is intermediate stable
polymorph and is stable polymorph and has the highest melting point, melting enthalpy and
density which both is obtained through crystallization process. Through the cooling stage the
polymorph will fully transformed into -prime because as the temperature increase the life
span polymorph will decrease. After heating for 1hour and 45 minutes, the oil is undergo
cooling process which from 80 oC temperature it is cool to 70 oC and maintain the
temperature to approximately 1 hour and 30 minutes by adjusting the valve that supply hot
water. The cooling process need to be slowly maintained to avoid the sudden change in
temperature of oil.

The cooling process continue until the temperature of oil became 20 oC which shown
in the graph. The total hour of heating and cooling process is approximately 8 hours. As the
temperature goes down the chiller is used to control and manipulate the temperature objective
to maintain the temperature. The cool water circulating in the jackets or cooling coils of the
crystallizers. When the oil reaches the desired temperature, the cooling is stopped to maintain
its temperature. Cooling can be governed by controlling either the oil or the water

temperature. If the temperature of oil decrease from 80 oC to 50 oC, the growth of the crystal
will be interrupt and the transition of (alpha) to (beta prime) polymorph will stopped.
Thus, the crystal will be not appeared because it can reversely change back to (alpha) form.
Therefore rapid cooling and speed of agitation is important to enhance the crystal growth.
Slow agitation rate is needed to have homogenous temperature in the reactor without
breaking the crystals that being formed.

After 8 hours, the process crystallization completely occurs which the palm olein will
flow out to the upper stream and the palm stearin with soft olein will come out at bottom
stream in slurry formed. The slurry from buffer tank passes through the filtration process for
the physical separation between RBD palm stearin and RBD palm olein. Presently, the
membrane filter is used for this filtration. The process start by squeezing the stearin cakes by
feeding compressed air to filter fill and inflating the rubber membranes. Cake will build up in
the hollow space between the elements and fall out of the press when the filter pack is
opened. Olein trapped in the stearin cakes is squeezed out and flows into olein tank thus
drying the stearin cakes.

The quality parameter that is nominally monitored for fractionation is Iodine Value (IV) and
Cloud point. Iodine value is defined as the number of centigrams of iodine absorbed per gram
of sample. It represents the degree of saturation of oil or fat. Lower IV means the oil is of
high saturation and vice versa. The theoretical IV for RBD palm oil is 52 and for palm olein
is 56. Other quality parameters which are quite important but cannot be controlled in
fractionation plant are colour and Free Fatty Acid. Besides checking the ICV, the cloud point
of the oil is another way to check the quality of the palm oil. The cloud point test is done by
slowly cooling the oil sample. The temperature of the oil when it changes from clear liquid to
cloudy is recorded. This temperature is taken as the cloud point (Azrin, 2012).

At the end of the experiment, we have obtained the IVs of soft olein, olein and stearin
are 53.39, 118.33 and 125.00 respectively.From the first dry fractionation, According to
Knothe (2002), IV was used as a general measure of the unsaturation of the oil. IV shows the
amount of double bonds present in the fatty acids. As the oil is more liquid (less saturated), it
will impart a higher IV. So the IV of soft olein (super olein) must be higher than olein. And
the IV of olein must be higher than the stearin. This is due to the composition of stearin
which is more saturated than olein and super olein respectively. But based on our results
obtained from the analysis, it can be said that the IV of soft olein is lesser than the IV of the
olein. And the IV of the olein is lesser than the IV of the stearin.

CONCLUSIONS & RECOMMENDATIONS

As for the conclusions, it can be stated that all four main objectives were achieved.
As for the results obtained, three main products were collected after the experiment which
were soft olein, stearin ant olein which resulted the IV of 53.39, 118.33 and 125.00
respectively. IV represent the degree of saturation of a an oil or fat. Lower IV means the oil is
of high saturation and vice versa. Normally the IV for RBD paIm oil is 52 and IV for palm
olein is 56. Other quality parameters which important but cannot be controlled in
Fractionation plant are colour and Free Fatty Acid.
As for recommendations, in order to make sure that the product are of good quality,
make sure that the feed is of acceptable quality by using various method such by checking the
cloud point of the oil. The cloud point test is done by slowly cooling of oil sample. The
temperature of the oil when it change from clear liquid to cloudy is noted. This temperature is
taken as the cloud point. In addition, while the experiment the temperature of the unit that
need to be set at each segments were difficult to be adjusted due chller breakdown, thus
affecting the quality of product produced. So, a better and efficient maintenance need to be
conducted immediately by repairing or replacing the chiller.