Which oils need dewaxing treatment and what is the process?

Oil dewaxing treatment process during edible oil refinery is to remove the wax content in some kinds of crude edible oil, wax is a kind of polymer lipid, high melting point, poor solubility in oil, will affect the taste and transparency of the edible oil, so the edible oil needs dewaxing treatment. However, not all oils need to be dewaxed, which oils need dewaxing treatment?

This process is mainly for those oils that are easy to precipitate wax at low temperatures, such as sunflower oil, rice bran oil, corn embryo oil, cottonseed oil, tea seed oil, etc. When untreated, these oils become cloudy at low temperatures, affecting transparency and taste. Generally speaking, the process of edible oil dewaxing is divided into four steps: heating, cooling, crystallization, filtration.

Dewaxing process 3d picture

The Dewaxing Process:

1. Heating

First, the refined edible oil should be heated to 55˚C, which is to make sure that all the crystal in edible oil have been broken. At room temperature, a part of the solid wax in the oil has precipitated crystals. In order to achieve a good dewaxing effect, it is necessary to heat the oil with a steam heater before oil dewaxing treatment process, destroying the existing crystals. This will achieve a better crystallization effect, and this process can also be called crystal breaking.

2. Cooling

The oil is gradually cooled to allow waxes to crystallize. This step requires precise temperature control to optimize crystal formation.

3. Crystallization

At low temperature, the wax will gradually form larger crystalline particles. In order to promote the formation of crystallization, slow cooling and slow mixing can be used, and the crystallization tank is equipped with variable speed mechanical mixing to ensure uniform mixing. When the oil appears as semi-solid stearic crystals in the liquid molasses, prepare for filtration. If crystallization does not work well, the slurry is sent to the feed oil heater for recrystallization.

Dewaxing process flow chart

4. Filtration

When the wax is fully crystallized, the crystallized wax is separated from the oil by filtration. Filtration is usually done using a plate and frame filter.

We are Henan Doing Holdings Henan Glory Oil & Fats Engineering Co.,Ltd,which is belong to Doing Holding. We are mainly engaged in vegetable oil raw material pretreatment, pressing, refining, solvent extraction, dewaxing, palm oil and palm kernel oil pressing, refining and fractionation, etc. Our company has the most advanced palm oil and edible oil pressing production technology, and undertakes edible oil production lines of various sizes. If you are interested, please contact us.