We have broadly three
sources of oils - petroleum, animal, and vegetable.
By vegetable oil I am
referring to oils gotten from plant sources. Examples include palm oil, coconut
oil, palm kernel oil, avocado oil, jojoba oil, olive oil, corn oil, jatropha
oil, peanut oil, orange pill oil, star apple seed oil etc.
Some of these oils are edible others are
not but the good thing is that all the oils are extremely useful in various
fields of human endeavour. The oils have application in pharmaceuticals,
cosmetics, and confectionary.
A few of the industrial
application of vegetable oils are highlighted in this write-up:
1.
In Fuel Production: edible and non-edible
type, fresh and waste stock of vegetable oils are converted to diesel for
driving of vehicles and powering of generators. It smokes less and has
favouravle cetane value.
2.
In Oil Paint
Production: Acrylic serves as binder in water paint while alkyd resyd
performs the same function in oil paint. Alkyd resyd is obtained by modifying
vegetable oils using readily available chemical feedstock.
3.
Drilling Mud
Production: The two popular broad categories of drilling mud used in
petroleum and water borehole drilling are water based and oil based mud. Water
based though environmentally friendly has its drawback as it is not suitable
for high temperature well formation. An alternative to it has been oil based
mud using Diesel as carrier. With heightened environmental concern of diesel
based mud, vegetable oil based mud has proven to be a candidate of choice.
4.
Detergent Feedstock: Detergent technology
has been evolving over the years with linear akylbenzene sulphonate (LAS) being
the choice candidate as a result of it biodegradability. LAS can be obtained by
sulphonation of vegetable oil at appropriate process conditions.
The benefits of
vegetable oil are great and the list appears to be endless.
Id Oduok is a Graduate
Student of Chemical Engineering, specializing in Process Design. His research
interest is Industrial Application of Vegetable Oils. A field he has been
working on since his undergraduate research. He covers extraction,
characterization, refining, and utilization of various vegetable oils. He also
designs, simulate, model, and builds pilot scale equipment/plants in this field
of interest.
Follow him on
odfidtechnicalworld.blogspot.com. Also on academia.edu.ng/idoduok. Visit his
Technical Center in Eket, Akwa Ibom State. Nigeria
ReplyDeleteDear sir,
We are in urgent need of crude rapeseed
Our requirements.
100 metric tons per month for 12 months contract.
First order will 50 MTs.
CIF China,
Payment term is DLC ( Letter of credit.
Dr Peter Dada PhD