corn oil production

Corn Oil Production

Corn oil production starts with corn germ, which is the embryo of a corn plant, distinct from the starchy nutrients in the endosperm. The oil content of the germ is about 85 percent of the total oil in the seed. The first step in corn oil production is mechanical: Corn kernels are dehulled and then crushed with a grooved roller to break down the cell walls. The resultant cake is then "wet milled," steeped in water acidified with sulphur dioxide to separate the components of the seed.

Oil is expelled from the germ using a heated screw oil press, which can yield as much as 50 percent of the germ oil. And the remaining oil is stripped from the "press cake" with the solvent hexane, a volatile by-product of gasoline production. (Hexane is introduced to the cake bed with an exposure time as brief as possible so that hexane residual in the oil will be limited.) The corn oil in the hexane solution is heated to vaporize the volatile solvent, which is captured as a condensate and used again. Then the heat expelled and hexane extracted oils are combined as crude corn oil; the remaining cake is processed for livestock feed.

Crude corn oil is filtered and then degummed. In steam degumming, steam is introduced at a volume of not more than 3 percent of the oil and is absorbed by lecithin or other gums, making them heavy enough to be removed by centrifugation. In alkali degumming, a heated sodium hydroxide solution is used to absorb the gums and also neutralize any free fatty acids, followed by "washing" the oil with hot water to remove any soap formed in the process. By-products of the alkali process are sold as soap stock.

Corn oil is bleached with clay that has been "activated" with acid wash to remove any metals native to the clay. As a result, the clay absorbs color pigments, residual soap products and metal ions from the corn oil. The clay is then removed from the oil by filtration.

Corn Oil Production on Small Scale

If you don't have so much money or you just want to begin a small corn oil production line for trail, you can just choose to strat a corn oil production on small scale. The corn oil production on small scale is fully adopted mechanical driven, they are easy to connect each small oil processing equipments to process the oil seeds to get the high oil output, at the same time, it also can change single machines by manual into the corn oil production on small scale to make the higher efficiency. The corn oil production on small scale requires less labor than the ordinary single machines, requiring only 2~3 people to operate the whole line. It only needs small investment, fewer land space, but with the complete function of the production.

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