Rendimento da extração mecânica de óleos de girassol.

Abstract

The oilseeds screw pressing consists on an efficient, low coast and simple operation to obtain vegetable oil. Some factors affecting the oil extraction are the temperature and moisture content. An factorial experimental design was done to optimize the process and to verify conditions of independent variables (temperature and moisture content) that give the best oil recovery. The raw material’s moisture and lipids content were done by official methodology by AOCS. The oil extraction was done on mini screw press MPE-40 by ECIRTEC. The response surface analysis show that the best operation range were 8% of moisture content and 25 to 50oC of temperature. The temperature itself was not significant but the interaction between temperature and moisture content was statistically significant.