Vegetable Oil Production

Overview

OSE principles suggest minimal use of petroleum products, which often means the substitution of locally produced vegetable oils. Oil crops are also likely to be grown for edible cooking oils. In either case, appropriately-scaled oil processing technology is required.

Applications

• Cooking oil
• Hydraulic fluid
• Motor fuel (Biodiesel)
• Lubricating oil (e.g. [1][2])
• Paints/coatings
• Electrical dielectric fluid[3]

Crops

• Canola (modified rapeseed)[[4]]
• Soybean
• Sunflower[5]
• Flax (Linseed)

Process

An open-frame hydraulic cage press which could be re-implemented with the CEB

Small scale processing paper from ATTRA

Oilseed pressing on Appropedia

at Library4Farming

from Practical Action

Description of conventional Refined/Bleached/Deodorized(RBD) process in this patent application

The cage press method of expressing oil involves loading seed into a squeezing compartment, applying at least 500psi (higher pressures, up to thousands of psi, improve extraction efficiency) to crush seed and express the liquid oil, then removing the remaining solid oilcake. It seems that with appropriate simple modifications (a perforated pusher block above the moving press foot) the CEB Press could perform this function very effectively.