Deodouriser boosts productivity
March 1st 2006 Alfa Laval says it can improve the productivity of deodorising plant for products such as vegetables and fish oils by up to 80% and slash energy costs by 75% by upgrading the plant with components from its SoftColumn range.
The company says traditional deodorising plants consume up to 0.15kg of steam per kg of vegetable oil produced. SoftColumn uses 0.05kg of steam/kg of final product.
A conventional deodouriser takes about an hour of boiling at 250°C to eliminate unwanted alcohols, ketones and other undesirable compounds. The process is said to also strip out more valuable compounds generally considered to be essential to product quality.
SoftColumn's vertical array of plates, by contrast, creates a thin film of oil that removes just the unwanted compounds.
It is said to prevent 99.5% of odours from being released to atmosphere. More articles from Alfa Laval Limited: | 
