Application Scenarios of Finned Tube Heat Exchanger in Palm Oil Production

Application Scenarios of Finned Tube Heat Exchanger in Palm Oil Production

Finned tube heat exchanger in palm oil production covers the whole process from raw material pretreatment to finished product processing, and then to the energy recovery, the core role is to strengthen the heat transfer efficiency, to achieve the heating, cooling, temperature regulation and other process objectives, while adapting to the high viscosity of palm oil, easy to crystallize, need to meet the food hygiene standards and other characteristics of the key equipment to ensure the efficiency of the production and quality of the product.

----Palm fruit pretreatment stage

Palm fruit cooking and heating

After picking palm fruit, it is necessary to destroy the cellular structure of the fruit through cooking, so as to facilitate the subsequent dehulling and oil extraction. This link needs to transfer the heat of steam or hot water to the palm fruit cob, finned tube heat exchanger can be used as heating equipment, using steam (or hot water) as a heat source, through the fins to expand the heat transfer area, quickly heating the palm fruit cob to 80-100 ℃, to ensure that the cooking is uniform, efficient, and at the same time to avoid overheating of the fruit to avoid local deterioration.

Wash water preheating

Palm fruits need to be cleaned before cooking to remove impurities, finned tube heat exchanger can be used to preheat the wash water generated in the production process (such as condensate, waste steam) to reduce the consumption of fresh hot water and achieve energy recovery.

---- Oil and grease extraction and separation stage

Preheating of pressed gross oil

The gross oil pressed from palm fruit has high viscosity, which directly enters into the separation equipment (e.g. centrifuge) will affect the separation efficiency. Finned tube heat exchanger can be used to heat the oil by hot water or steam to raise its temperature to 50-70℃, which reduces the viscosity and facilitates the subsequent separation of oil and dregs, and at the same time reduces the energy consumption of the equipment.

Solvent recovery heating (for leaching process)

If palm oil is extracted by leaching method, solvent (e.g. hexane) is needed to dissolve the oil, and the solvent is subsequently recovered by heating and evaporation. Finned tube heat exchanger can be used to heat the solvent-containing mixed oil with steam, so that the solvent is vaporized and separated, and at the same time through the fins to strengthen the heat transfer, improve the efficiency of solvent recovery.

---Palm Oil Refining Stage

Degumming / Deacidification Process Heating

The gross oil needs to be refined through degumming (removal of phospholipids), deacidification (removal of free fatty acids) and other refining steps to improve the quality, and these processes often need to heat the gross oil to specific temperatures (e.g., 80-120°C) to enhance the efficiency of the reaction. Finned tube heat exchanger can use hot water or thermal oil as the heat source, expanding the heat exchange area through the fins to heat the oil quickly and uniformly, and avoiding the oxidation of the oil caused by local high temperature.

Temperature Control of Decolorization Process

In the decolorization process, after mixing with adsorbent (e.g. activated white clay), the gross oil needs to be heated up to 100-130℃ to enhance the adsorption effect, and then it needs to be cooled down to the filtration temperature. Finned tube heat exchanger can be used for heating (using steam) and cooling (using cold water or cooling water), and the temperature can be precisely regulated by switching the heat source/cold source to ensure the stability of decolorization effect.

Deodorization Process Heating and Cooling

Deodorization is the removal of odor substances from fats and oils by vacuum distillation at high temperature (200-260℃), which requires heating the fats and oils to a high temperature first, and then cooling them to the storage temperature (30-50℃) after deodorization. Finned tube heat exchanger can be used in the heating stage to rapidly raise the temperature of high-pressure steam, and the cooling stage through the cooling water or cold oil heat recovery, taking into account the efficiency and energy saving.

---Palm oil fractionation

Palm oil fractionation is the process of separating oil into liquid oil (e.g. palm liquid oil) and solid fat (e.g. palm stearin) by controlling the temperature, which requires precise control of the temperature change:

Cooling and crystallization: During the fractionation, the refined palm oil is cooled down slowly to a specific temperature (e.g. 20-40℃), so that the solid fat is crystallized and precipitated out. Finned tube heat exchanger can be used as a cold source through low temperature cooling water (or refrigerant), using fins to strengthen heat dissipation, to achieve uniform cooling of the oil and grease, to avoid too rapid cooling resulting in too large crystalline particles, affecting the subsequent separation.

Heating and tempering of crystal slurry: After the crystallization is completed, sometimes it needs to be slightly heated (e.g. 5-10℃) to adjust the state of the crystal slurry, so as to facilitate the filtration and separation. Finned tube heat exchanger can realize mild heating through low-grade heat source (such as waste heat hot water) to ensure the stability of crystal slurry.

---By-product Processing and Energy Recovery

Palm Kernel Oil Processing and Heating

Palm kernel obtained after hulling of palm fruits can be further squeezed to extract palm kernel oil, and its processing (e.g. kernel flake softening, gross oil refining) needs to be heated to 40-80°C. Finned tube heat exchanger can utilize low-pressure steam or waste heat for heating to reduce energy consumption.

Waste Heat Recovery of Wastewater / Waste Gas

Palm oil production will produce high temperature wastewater (such as cooking wastewater, the temperature is about 80-90 ℃) or exhaust gas (such as boiler exhaust smoke), finned tube heat exchanger can be used to recover the waste heat, which will be heated up by the cold water or air, used for cleaning, heating or preheating the process medium, to achieve energy saving and emission reduction.