Sunflower Oil Production Cost Analysis

The cost of setup cooking oil business is closely related to many factors such as oil mill capacity, process design, equipment selection, factory layout, automation degree of the production line. The bulk of the startup capital will be spent on leasing or acquiring a facility and also in purchasing oilseed oil extracting and processing machines. You are also expected to spend much on the purchase and servicing of distribution trucks, paying your employees, and settling utility bills.

 Site Planning Of Sunflower Oil Production Line

Starting a small sunflower oil mill requires a certain amount of space, and you can save on space costs if you have your own vacant plant, if not you will need to consider rental or purchase.

 Selection Of Sunflower Oil Machine

There are two kinds of processing technology of sunflower oil production, one is pressing, the other is solvent extraction. Screw pressing/expelling should be your first choice when starting a small-scale sunflower oil plant, while for industrial scale oil mill plant, prepressing & solvent extraction process is recommended. The main equipment for making sunflower oil is screw oil press. In addition, you can choose whether you need a matching steaming machine according to your specific situation and funds.

Vegetable Oil Production in South Africa

As a main grain producer of the world, Kazakhstan is improving the oilseeds production rapidly in recent years, especially sunflower seeds. About 60% of the area cultivated under oil crops are sunflower.

About 135 000 tons of vegetable oil is required annually in this country, amount to 9kg per inhabitant. Most Kazakh vegetable oil factory work for the domestic market, but it still can’t meet the increasing demand. Sunflower oil dominates the local edible oil market. About 70% of the edible oil needs in Kazakhstan are supplied by domestic production of sunflower oil. Other 30% of the domestic consumer demand is supported by importing from Russian and other countries.

Technical Process of Sunflower Oil Manufacturing Factory

The following are the industrial processes which take place during large scale fully automatic sunflower oil extraction factory.

• Cleaning

Sunflower seeds contain impurities dust and metal traces. For the sunflower oil processing to take place metal traces are removed by passing the seeds over magnets. Impurities are also removed by use of cleaning sieves and destoners. After the impurities are removed the outer covering are then removed for pure seeds to be obtained. (Related Product: Start A Small Vegetable Oil Plant)

• Crushing

The second process is the grading process. The seeds are ground to provide a larger surface area for them to be pressed. Hammer mills are usually used during the grinding process in order to produce a fine particle of course meals. The meals are then heated for the oil extraction process to occur.

• Oil Pressing Process

The crushed and heated meals are then put into a screw type sunflower oil pressing machine. While inside pressure is increased progressively from 60kps to 950kps and 206kps increased to 850kpsas the heated meal goes through a slotted barrel. As pressure is increased oil is squeezed out via the slots.

• Solvent Extraction of Sunflower Seed Cake

Normally not all the oil is squeezed out in the pressing process. To achieve high yields solvent extraction process is carried out. Highly volatile hydrocarbon solvent(hexane) is used to extract sunflower oil remained in sunflower seed oil cake. The resulting solvent is then distilled to separate the hydrocarbon from the oil.

• Removal of Solvent

More than 95% of the solvent in the extracted oil evaporates because of its volatile nature. A stripping column is usually used to remove any traces of the solvent. The oil is boiled whereby the solvent evaporates and pure oil collected after condensation.

• Refining the Sunflower Oil

Refining is usually the last process of edible oil plant and it involves the removal of colour, bitterness, and odor. At a temperature of 40-80 degrees and an alkaline substance such as sodium carbonate added. Degumming of the oil is done by heating at temperatures of between 85-95 degrees. This process precipitates most of the phosphates in the oil. Centrifugation process is done to remove the gums. To obtain pure oil eligible for cooking it is passed over heated carbon to remove pigmentation substances. Winterization is usually done to remove waxes so as to prevent solidification of the oil when in refrigerators.