Abstract: Spent Bleaching Earth (SBE) is hazardous solid waste generated from the edible oil industry through the oil bleaching process, as it is used to purify the edible oil to accomplish the strict standards required for edible oil on colour, taste and hence oil¡¯s shelf-life.
How does Bleaching Earth affect palm oil refining?
This work presented important results to improve the understanding of palm oil refining and some concluding remarks can be drawn so far: the type of bleaching earth can define oxidation pathways in two different manners. At the first moment, ABE decomposes peroxides in alkoxyl and alkyl radicals, which can react faster with ¦Â-carotene.
Why is bleaching earth used in oil extraction?
Bleaching earth is used to eliminate impurities and color from the oil but, it absorbs a large amount of oil in this process. SBE contains high quantities of residual oil (20¨C50% w/w), this oil is low quality and inedible because it contains high concentrations of contaminants ( Sahafi et al., 2016 ).
Does bleaching earth remove -carotene from crude palm oil?
The pilot-scale bleaching process demonstrated that the prepared bleaching earth with GS to SS ratio of 3:2 (coded as M-03) could remove 96% of ¦Â-carotene from crude palm oil; which is the best among the investigated samples and also higher than the commercial bleaching earth (only 85¨C90% ¦Â-carotene removal).
