Oleochemicals & Omega3 purification plants

Oleochemicals include a broad range of products (fatty acids, fatty alcohols and others) produced starting from vegetable (e.g., olive oil, sunflower oil, citrus oil, hemp seed oil) and animal oils (e.g., fish oil), fats or even from unicellular microalgae (alternative source of polyunsaturated fatty acids – PUFA). The processing of these products involves several stages and purification is essential to achieve the desired final quality, whether it involves pre-treated oils or fats or the derived products. Purification may occur in several steps, according to the specific base material and the result to be achieved: - removal of residual humidity, dissolved gases and other volatile compounds present in the edible oil and fat; - removal of free fatty acids and thus reduction of edible oil or fat acidity; - deodorization; - removal of pesticides and pollutants; - fractionation and concentration of fatty acids, fatty alcohols, fatty esters. Thermal separation technologies such as evaporation, distillation and stripping, whether combined or not, are generally applied to obtain these results.