Performing Department
(N/A)
Non Technical Summary
There is increased interest in developing new oilseed varieties of food grade vegetable oils due to the impact of existing oils on nutrition and health, and also to develop renewable products. North Dakota leads in production of many oilseeds; however, there is no pilot scale (25-L capacity) vegetable oil refinery in the Midwest to enhance research and extension activities beyond lab scale. Refined oil from many of these varieties are not commercially available. Acquiring the proposed equipment will strengthen research activities such as: 1) optimizing process conditions to improve cost, shelf life, and quality of vegetable oils and 2) testing new or emerging vegetables oils not yet available at industrial scale for food and bioproduct applications. Previously, we developed a 2-L batch degumming, washing, and bleaching protocol for soybean and hempseed oils which takes 100 h to refine 25 L of crude oil. The proposed equipment will significantly reduce the processing time to 8 h (92% reduction); hence, improve oil quality, oil recovery, and worker's safety. In addition to research goals, the equipment will be used to 1) train students who will likely work in oil processing companies through lab activities in the PI's classes, 2) develop a short course at Northern Crops Institute, and 3) support industrial partners. The research and training goals of the proposed equipment will satisfy USDA strategic goals 2 and 4 which are "Ensure America's Agricultural System is equitable, Resilient, and Prosperous" and "Provide all Americans Safe, Nutritious Food." and Research, Education, and Economic theme 4.
Animal Health Component
50%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
25%
Applied
50%
Developmental
25%
Goals / Objectives
The major goal of the project is to acquire an equipmet (Armfield FT 66-D) that can perform 3 refining steps (degumming, neutralization, and bleaching) of crude vegetable oils and facilitates practical research and development.
Project Methods
Vegetable oil processing can be broken into two major steps; 1) expeller-pressed and/or solvent extraction of crude oil and 2) refining of crude oil.The existing Armfield FT29 solvent extraction/desolventizing and expeller-pressed units areused to extract crude vegetable oil from 10-12 kg of oilseed per batch. The extractors are regularly being used for a wide range of oilseed research and teaching purposes. The crude oil produced from these extractors is used in wide range of research projects in oilseed storage, biodiesel, and bioresin production and characterization by the PDand Co-PDs. Crude vegetable oil refining process has many steps that can be achieved by two pieces of equipment; a neutralizer/bleacher and a deodorizer. North Dakota State Univerity (NDSU) already havea deodorizer, which is one of the two units needed for the refining process. The acquiredequipment (Armfield FT 66D) will be used in some of the crude vegetable oil refining process. Hence,it will complement the existing equipment and upgrade the facility at NDSU to a complete pilot scale oil extraction and refinery.The equipment in this project is a floor-standing batch processing system with a capacity of refining 25 L of vegetable oil. The equipment can perform 3 refining steps (degumming, neutralization, and bleaching) of crude vegetable oils and facilitates practical research and development. It contains a stainless steel 45 L reactor vessel (25 L working volume), 3 L reagents vessels, framework to support the entire unit. There is a 3.8 L filter system mounted with a floor-standing that has a filter of 110 mesh and a 3 bars filter pump. In the reactor vessel, there is a variable speed (250-1,800 rpm) agitator, 3.0 kW electrical heating element, and a cooling coil with a heat transfer area of 0.12 m2. The reagent vessel has a 1 kW heating element to heat reagent to a desired temperature.