How to Produce Sunflower Seed Oil

Sunflower seed oil is widely used in industry; it can be used to produce various industrial products such as paint, plastics, lubricants, diesel fuel, soap, and detergent. Sunflower seed oil is also one of the most common edible oils. Most sunflower seed oil is used for cooking or for making margarine. Nowadays, the demand for sunflower seed oil is increasing due to its wide use.

Sunflower Seed Oil Processing

The following are the sunflower seed oil processing links within a sunflower oil plant.

Sunflower Seeds Pre-Cleaning

The first thing to do is to clean sunflower seeds and remove impurities from them. We can use magnets to remove metal impurities from raw materials. Then, screening was conducted to remove other impurities that might affect sunflower oil production.(Read more about oil seed pre-cleaning)

Seed De-hulling

In order to ensure the high quality of sunflower seed oil, we need to crush and shell the raw materials before they enter the oil press. The crushed mixture will be screened by wind to separate the shell and core. This process is optional to prevent excessive oil loss from some hard-shelled sunflower seeds during oil pressing. (Read more about Small Seed Dehuller >>)

Seed Grinding

In this step, shelled sunflower seeds are ground by a mechanized roller or hammer mill for subsequent heating and pumping. The purpose of grinding is to increase the heating area of raw materials in the extraction process.

The heated sunflower seed powder is continuously added to the sunflower oil press with a groove drum, in which the pressure increases from 69,000 kPa to 200,000 kPa. The oil is extruded and recycled through the tank in the barrel. This mechanical process almost removes half of the oil preceding the extraction of the solvent. (Read more about Sunflower Oil Solvent Extraction Machine)

Crude Oil Extraction

In the extraction process of sunflower seed oil, the use of hexane and other solvents to dissolve the oil in the oil cake can maximize the yield. The dissolved oil is then distilled and purified and collected. The extraction equipment is designed to optimize the amount of solvent and the time required to process oil under various conditions.

Solvent Traces’ Removal

A good percentage of solvent that used on the oil extracting process will evaporate, but can be re-collected for further use. The residual solvents can be extracted and recovered from flakes by heating and distillation. At this stage, you will get the dissolved debris as the final product. The crude sunflower seed oil is further refined to obtain more edible products.

Oil Refining

This implicates heating the oil to around 40- 85 degrees Celsius and mixing it with carbonates or chlorides of sodium. The entire refining processes eliminate pollutants like free fatty acids, pro-oxidants, and phosphatides. Additional processing of fats and oils is often desirable. For instance, some are de-waxed while others are improved to alter their melting features. Now, you’ll get liquid and solid products which are then packed various quantities ready for market. The byproducts resulting from the entire process can be directly used or improved for extended use.

The purpose of refining is to improve the color, flavor, odor and stability of oil. This process includes bleaching, degumming, deodorization and neutralization. This requires heating the oil to 40-85 degrees Celsius and mixing it with carbonate or sodium chloride. The whole refining process eliminates pollutants such as free fatty acids, co-oxidants, and phospholipids. Now, you should be able to get solid sunflower seed oil which is ready for market. (Read more about the Oil Refining Plant >>)

Above is the process of extracting sunflower seed oil. In practice, some of these links can be customized. This process is also applicable to the processing of other vegetable oils, such as cottonseed oil, peanut oil, palm oil, etc.

The processing of sunflower seed oil involves many links, each of which requires different equipment and machinery. The equipment in the small sunflower seed oil processing line is relatively simple and easy to operate. The cost of building small oil plants is low, but the profits are considerable. If you are interested in the processing of sunflower seed oil, please contact us for more detailed information.