Palm fruit processing in palm oil production

Bunches of palm fruits are delivered by truck to the site. To separate the fruits and to hydrate them by about 10%, the bunches are sterilized with steam at around 120°C, in the stripper. The bunches and leaves are then mechanically separated in the thresher. The next step is the digestion process, where the oil is released by disrupting the cell walls. The resulting hot fluid then consists of free oil, fibres and seeds. This hot fluid mixture is delivered into a decanter where water is added, to expel a mixture of oil and water into a clarifier to separate. Here the oil floats above the water and sludge at the bottom of the tank. The oil drawn off from the top is further cleaned by using another separator, where any remaining solids are removed from the oil. The sludge at the bottom still has still a certain amount of oil in it, and is processed again in another decanter. This oil is then also pumped to the buffer tank.

In palm fruit processing the electromagnetic flowmeter OPTIFLUX 7300 is our product highlight. The OPTIFLUX 7300 is the ideal flowmeter for measuring the outputs from the clarifier. Due to the non-wetted capacitive electrodes in this flowmeter, it is the perfect meter for slurries like the underflow sludge, since any coating of the pipe wall does not affect the flowmeter performance. The 7300 can also measure liquids with poor conductivity like the palm oil itself. The ceramic liner has an excellent abrasion resistance, so is unaffected by slurries containing solid materials.