Palm oil is available in a variety of forms: crude palm oil, palm olein, palm stearin, RBD palm oil, fractionated palm olein and pal mid-fraction.
While most of the oil Malaysia exports is RBD palm oil and RBD palm olein, the range of products is available to suit a variety of manufacturing needs and in forms that are ready-to-use and require no further processing.
Palm oil is a common cooking ingredient in the tropical belt of Africa, Southeast Asia and parts of Brazil. Its increasing use in the commercial food industry in other parts of the world is buoyed by its lower cost and the high oxidative stability of the refined product when used for frying. Palm oil contains several saturated and unsaturated fats in the forms of glyceryl laurate (0.1%, saturated), myristate (1%, saturated), palmitate (44%, saturated), stearate (5%, saturated), oleate (39%, monounsaturated), linoleate (10%, polyunsaturated), and linolenate (0.3%, polyunsaturated).
Refining Routes of Palm Oil Plant
General speaking, the refining routes of palm oil is quite identical. There are two routes are taken to process crude palm oil into refined palm oil; which are chemical (basic) refining and physical refining. The methods differ basically in the way the fatty acids are removed from the oil. Physical refining, which eliminates the need for an effluent plant for the soap stock, involves subjecting the oil to steam distillation under higher temperature and vacuum for removal of the free fatty acids. The physical refining is used to remove the free fatty acids. The refining of physical plant is practiced to subject the oil to steam distillation.
