Sunflower oil is an excellent vegetable oil which is extracted from sunflower seeds that begin with sunflower seeds pre-treatment, pre-pressing, embryonic material leaching, wet meal desolventizing and crude sunflower oil refinery process. Sunflower seed oil is rich in linoleic acid, which helps reduce blood cholesterol levels in the body, and is beneficial to protect cardiovascular health. Besides the unsaturated fatty acids, sunflower oil also contains vitamins E, folic acid, iron, potassium, zinc and other essential nutrients.
Currently, the sunflower oil sold on the market is mostly produced by de-shelled pre-squeezing and leaching process. De-shelled pressing-leaching technology is the key point of sunflower oil production line which avoids the negative impact of over-refining, high temperature, and acid and alkali effects on oils, so that the nutrients in the oil can be well preserved. For example, the content of vitamin E in de-shelled squeezed sunflower oil is 75.5mg/100g. However, by squeezing-leaching seeds with shell, every 100g sunflower oil only contains 41.62mg vitamin E. What’s more, there is no contact with alkane in the process of the un-shelled pressing-leaching process, which avoids the formation of trans fatty acids.
The processing characteristics of first-grade sunflower oil are: First of all, sunflower seeds are selected and cleaned to remove impurities, and then the seeds are de-husked and crushed. After that the embryo is flaked and steamed in the frying pan, the fried product is pre-squeezed out of the oil and the remaining oil is extracted by solvent leaching, then the crude oil is purified through precipitation and filtration. Finally, the oil is dissolved, degummed, decolorized, deacidified and deodorized into the refined oil. More specifically, the operation steps and equipment for processing sunflower oil are as follows:
Select the sunflower seeds with the oil content of 30~50%, and the seed material contains certain impurities (sediment, stones, iron filings, etc.) which should be removed by cleaning sieve and magnetic separator.
Oil cleaning sieve, magnetic separator.
Oil cleaning sieve is mainly to remove the impurities in the seed material, and the magnetic separator can remove iron filings.
(1.) The machine is driven by a vibrating motor, and the size of the excitation force, vibration direction, and the inclination of the sieve body can be adjusted according to the characteristics of the oilseed, which cleans up the oil more thoroughly and cleanly;
(2.) Oilseed cleaning could reduce the wear of subsequent equipment and the dust in the workshop is reduced, too;
(3.) Smooth operation, good cleaning effect, and high production efficiency.
Sunflower oil is a high-quality edible oil known as “nutritive oil”, which has become the preferred oil for consumers and chefs. And the worldwide consumption of sunflower oil ranks third in all vegetable oils. It is generally used for cooking, for example, it is used to make margarine, mayonnaise, salad dressing and salad oil. The artificial cream obtained with sunflower oil has excellent taste and high unsaturated fatty acid content. In the food industry, sunflower oil is also used to make fried fast food, such as potato chips and corn chips. The sunflower oil cake which obtained after squeezing contains 30%~36% of protein and 8%~11% of fat. In addition to feed, oil cake can also be used to produce monosodium glutamate and soy sauce. The protein in the sunflower kernels is composed of reasonable amino acids and can be used to make edible protein powder. The sunflower shell can be used as a fuel to generate steam and electricity, as well as animal feed and furfural production.
