SIpom

Sustainable & Intelligent palm oil

Milling
Presented by Ir. Ravi Menon
MODULE 8: cpo CLARIFICATIO
(15 slides)
 Sustainable and Intelligent Palm Oil Milling (SIPOM)
8. Clarification
One erratic design of
the vertical clarifier by almost all consultants is the
overdesign of the clarifier capacity.
Perhaps the old designers did not take into account the
need for high DOBI
Value of CPO as that was not a mandatory
requirement a few years ago
 Sustainable and Intelligent Palm Oil Milling (SIPOM)
8. Clarification
NOTE!!! It does not serve any purpose in having
over sized clarifier to increase the retention time of more
than 3 hours in the clarifier,
hoping for maximum oil separation,
it will not separate any additional oil even if the
retention time is increased to 12 hours.
On the other hand it lowers the DOBI value of your oil
A very serious error in most mill designs
 Sustainable and Intelligent Palm Oil Milling (SIPOM)
8. CLARIFICATION SECRETS
NOTE: CLARIFICATION DYNAMICS
RETENTION SEPARATION COMMENTS
TIME (MIN) (%)
20 95.9 This is the time taken
40 97.6 by the oil to rise up by
60 98.3 90 cm. Oil particles below
120 99.3 15% will never rise up to 90 cm
 Sustainable and Intelligent Palm Oil Milling (SIPOM)
8. Clarification
All you need is maximum 3 hour retention
NOTE & That for a 70 tph mill
ABSORB With even 28 % OER
Is no more than 20 t x 3 = 60 t or 70 m3
If you use a 150 m3 tank the retention is 6.5 hours that is not
being kind to the DOBI value of the CPO
 Sustainable and Intelligent Palm Oil Milling (SIPOM)
8. Clarification
The conventional method of clarification
of CPO practiced by most millers in South East Asia is
not the best when viewed from many angles.
They are:
Decanter, the most expensive processing machine
in the mill is used for processing sludge, the waster
discharge.
 Sustainable and Intelligent Palm Oil Milling (SIPOM)
8. Clarification

The decanter should have been

the first separator
machine in the process line
by separating the press
liquor into oil, sludge and the solids in one go.
 Sustainable and Intelligent Palm Oil Milling (SIPOM)
8. Clarification
The sludge may undergo one more process step
for the recovery of residual oil
from the heavy phase.
However, the heavy phase will generate
undetected fragmented oil particles and emulsions
caused by the high speed rotation
imparted to the oil.
Sustainable and Intelligent Palm Oil Milling (SIPOM)
8. Clarification

There is another option of using

the static
coalescence plate separator
that also can do
the same functions ,
although less efficient
than a the decanter
 Sustainable and Intelligent Palm Oil Milling (SIPOM)
8. Clarification- Static Separators
This can be done using static
as well as dynamic methods
The preferred option should always
be static.
The ideal method appears to be the static
coalescence plate separator that somehow failed
to capture the attention of the millers.
Sustainable and Intelligent Palm Oil Milling (SIPOM)
8. Clarification- Static Separators
The press liquor can be processed
by the coalescence plate separator
as it
being a 3-phase separator
can separate out most
of the pure oil at this stage itself.
 Sustainable and Intelligent Palm Oil Milling (SIPOM)
8. Clarification- Static Separators

The pure oil so separated

will be wholesome in structure with neither the micron
level particles nor the emulsions unlike the oil processed
by
high speed machines.
The outcome will be preservation of as much of the
virgin oil structure as possible
 Sustainable and Intelligent Palm Oil Milling (SIPOM)

8. Clarification -options
After say 90% of the pure oil has been
separated and also say 80% of the solids the
remaining sludge will need the undesirable centrifugal
treatment to recover the residual oil in the heavy phase.
For this it is better to have a larger skimmer height like 12 inches

Oil
 Sustainable and Intelligent Palm Oil Milling (SIPOM)

8. Clarification -options

The solid and the heavy phase

may be processed by
a decanter to separate the residual oil and solids
from the heavy phase after undergoing a de-sanding step
as other wise the decanter may wear off prematurely OR
A Stork type sludge separator that can recover
the fat oil bot not the solids
 Sustainable and Intelligent Palm Oil Milling (SIPOM)

8. Clarification -options

The advantage of this setup is

preservation of oil quality
as well as reduction or
avoidance of the water dilution.