234 Deffense
2000, 234–236
Dry fractionation technology
in 2000
Etienne Deffense
Crystallisation & Degumming Sprl, Charleroi, Belgium
1 Introduction
Dry fractionation of oils and fats is the separation of high-
melting triglycerides from low-melting triglycerides by
crystallisation from the melt. Apart from blending, it is the
cheapest process in oils and fats processing. It is a pure
physical process compared to other chemical modifica-
tion processes such as hydrogenation and interesterifica-
tion which modify triglycerides.
Dry fractionation has probably been used for the first time
in 1872, when Mège Mouriès produced the first margarine
made of oleomargarine or tallow olein. Being considered
for many years as a tedious, expensive and bulky
process, the technology has been particularly driven by
the substantial growth in the volume of palm oil that is be-
ing fractionated for production of palm olein. In 1960 palm
oil, indeed, represented 4.7% of 15 oils and fats in total
world consumption and it is expected to rise to 20% by
2005 or about 20 millions tons, equalling soybean oil.
Nowadays, dry fractionation is gaining importance in oil
and fat processing in view of current trends favouring
the most “natural” or “green” approach: no additives, no
chemicals are used and it generates no effluent and loss
of oil. Today dry fractionation is applied to many kinds of
fats: palm oil, anhydrous milk fat, tallow, fish oil, lard,
cottonseed oil, sunflower seed oil, palm kernel oil, tallow
butter fats, special fats and partially or hardened oils:
soybean oil, rapeseed oil and fish oil.
The most important applications are: palm olein used ex-
tensively as frying oil, palm super olein as salad oil and
frying oil, the palm-mid fraction as component of cocoa
butter equivalent (CBE), palm kernel stearin as cocoa
butter substitute (CBS), anhydrous milk fat fractions for
bakery and confectionery products, spreadable butter, tal-
low olein for frying oil and spreads and finally hardened
oils for cocoa butter replacer (CBR).
Correspondence: Etienne Deffense, Crystallisation & Degum-
ming Sprl, Terre l’Oreye 21, 6032 Charleroi, Belgium.
Phone: + 32 71 434624, Fax: + 32 71 477912;
e-mail: e.deffense@crystallisation.be
Eur. J. Lipid Sci. Technol.
2 Principle of the dry fractionation or the
crystallisation from the melt
In this process, the fat is melted and heated to eliminate
any crystal memory. The molten fat is cooled down under
controlled agitation and cooling conditions to produce
crystals nuclei formed by the higher melting triglycerides.
Then, nuclei will grow to form crystals of the desired size.
When the crystallisation has progressed far enough, the
slurry is separated. In other words, the crystals or the sol-
id fraction, called stearin, is separated from the mother
liquor which is called olein.
Apparently, it looks simple, but in practice, this physical
process is complicated by the fact that the formation of
nuclei depends on the foreign particles, the agitation, the
temperature, the triglycerides composition and the type of
pre-treatment followed by the fat. Crystals growth is de-
termined by the number of nuclei present, the degree of
super-saturation of the molten fat.
If the quality of the olein mainly depends on the tempera-
ture of the separation, the quality of the stearin and the
yield of both fractions will depend on the following factors:
 The design of the crystalliser, i.e. the engineering:
 the cooling exchange surface
 the type of cooling system
 the type of agitation
Only batch crystallising systems consisting of a certain
number of tanks are applicable; the attempts to produce
continuous crystallising systems have failed so far. Each
tank is either a concentric crystalliser or a crystalliser
equipped with either vertical cooling coils, helical cooling
coils or vertical cooling plates or even with a bundle of
pipes used at the same time for agitation and cooling.
The geometry of the cooling system, affecting notably the
total cooling exchange surface of the crystalliser and the
type of agitation are the predominant factors. The trend is
going to increase as much as possible the ratio cooling
surface in sqm per ton of oil treated while keeping the
slurry in suspension and agitation.
 The crystallisation cooling conditions:
 cooling rate
 extent of supercooling
 agitation rate
 crystallisation time
Each specific crystalliser is treated independently accord-
ing to agitation, heating and cooling parameters required
for each specific feedstock. Nowadays, most plants are
controlled by plc programme or by electronic device. The
oil is cooled either according to a linear cooling pro-
Eur. J. Lipid Sci. Technol. 2000, 234–236
gramme or to a multi-step cooling profile or also to a
differential temperature profile between the oil and the
cooling water circulating through the cooling system.
Presently, a good crystallisation can be successfully ob-
tained with RBD palm oil in 8 h.
 The separation type:
 vacuum filter
 membrane filter press
 centrifuge
When looking at the different processes proposed in the
market, they can be grouped into either fast or slow
processes: people promoting the fast process favour the
membrane filter press, since for them the separation is
the most important aspect. On the other hand, those in
favour of the slow process regard crystallisation as the
most important step. To them the separation process is
not the only tool for attaining a high efficient separation.
Stearins obtained by crystallisation from melted fat, al-
ways contain some portion of the olein resulting from the
formation of mixed crystals but also due to the difficulty in
the separation of the olein from the stearin. The retention
of the olein either absorbed onto the surface of the crys-
tals or in the spaces between agglomerated crystals is
called „entrainment“. It depends to some extent upon the
process conditions used, but mainly on the type of sepa-
ration. The reduction of entrainment has therefore been a
major objective of developmental work in edible oil frac-
tionation during this last decade and is still under devel-
opment. Although solvent and to a lesser extent deter-
gents have the advantage of high selectivity, both of them
have been banished for cost reason.
Consequently, the trend in fractionation has been to opti-
mise the separation efficiency (SE) in the dry fractionation
process, defined as the solid crystallised phase fraction in
the cake stearin measured by NMR.
The introduction in 1983 of the membrane filter press
greatly improved the separation efficiency of the dry
fractionation process. Its principle is similar to that of
a plate and frame filter except that the filter feed pressure
is kept at rather low value, 1.0 to 1.5 bar. Each chamber
is equipped with filter cloths and with one or two
membranes made of flexible material (rubber or poly-
propylene). After filling, the membrane is slowly applied
by means of a gas or a liquid, compressed air being most
common; some retained olein will be squeezed out, leav-
ing a hard stearin cake. Depending on the type of feed-
stock, the squeezing pressure may range from 5 bar for
soft products like fish oil to 5–15 bar for palm oil and
anhydrous milk fat and to 25–30 bar for speciality fats
(CBE, CBR and CBS). For anhydrous milk fat, for exam-
ple, the percentage of liquid in the stearin cake drops from
60–70% obtained with a vacuum filter to around 40–45%
Fractionation of fats – a dossier 235
with a membrane filter press operating at 6 bar squeezing
pressure. It means that the SE rises from 0.3–0.4 to
0.5–0.6.
3 New trends in separation
Recently, a new type of separator has been developed by
Westfalia Separator. It consists of separating the crystals
by centrifuge without additives but playing on the differ-
ence of specific gravity between the two fractions. This
centrifuge requires small hard crystals.
Another type of centrifuge, a filter centrifuge or a worm-
screen centrifuge has been investigated. It is a conical
sieve centrifuge fitted with a tightly fitting, co-rotating
worm. The crystal slurry is fed through a co-axial tube to
the narrow end of the cone and moves by the centrifugal
force over the screen in the direction of the wide end of
the cone. During this movement, the liquid olein passes
through the screen whereas the stearin particles are re-
tained by the screen. Sieve and worm rotate at slightly dif-
ferent speeds. Consequently, any crystals sticking to the
screen are regularly scraped off by the worm. At the same
time, the worm prevents crystals from moving too fast and
thus provides them with a certain residence time. In addi-
tion, the worm may also cause the crystals to rotate and
thus expose new surfaces to the screen so that these sur-
faces are also provided with an opportunity to shed their
liquid oil.
The SE of the filter centrifuge is much better than that ob-
tained with a vacuum filter and is even slightly better than
that obtained with a membrane filter press using a stan-
dard squeezing pressure of 5 bar. This process has been
used for production of CBE and CBR and is under devel-
opment for other fats.
Both centrifuges have the advantage to offer an enclosed
system, continuous and hygienic separation.
4 Other trends in dry fractionation
 Multi-step fractionation as a tool for production of
super or special fractions.
 Induced nucleation: The multi-stage fractionation looks
quite simple but in practice, the re-fractionation of olein
is complicated because it requires a long cycle time. A
recent study has therefore aimed at showing that with
induced nucleation, the crystallisation rate can be
much faster and more selective and thus leads to a
much reduced cycle time. This can be cut by at least
50% for super olein production.
For example, in standard conditions, a super olein of IV
64–65 is produced industrially in around 60 h; the yield
236 Denet et al.
ranges between 50 and 55%. The same olein crystallised
in a well-designed crystalliser, well controlled and with
seeding, leads to a super olein in less than one day with
an excellent yield (60%) and cloud point.
5 Trends for the future
May we imagine a continuous crystallisation combined to
a continuous separation.
Other alternative processes may take place to replace the
multi-step fractionation processes requiring a lot of time
and storage tanks handling.
Industrial chromatographic
separation of fats
Félicie Denet, Willi Hauck, Roger Marc Nicoud
NOVASEP, Vandoeuvre lès Nancy, France
1 Introduction
For a long time, chromatography was considered as an
excellent analytical technique, and purification performed
with this separation was limited to the laboratory scale.
Important technical evolutions have transformed chro-
matography in a purification technique for the develop-
ment scale and more and more for the industrial scale.
These progresses come from different fields, technical
improvement of batch chromatography (classic HPLC or
supercritical fluid chromatography), development of new
processes (simulated moving bed), development of mod-
elling tools allowing a better understanding and control of
the processes.
These three orientations will be detailed and some exam-
ples of the application of these techniques for fats purifi-
cation will be presented.
Correspondence: Félicie Denet, NOVASEP, 15 rue du bois de
la Champelle, Parc Technologique de Brabois, BP50, 54502
Vandoeuvre lès Nancy.
Phone: +33 383 447250, Fax: +33 383 447249;
e-mail: novasep@novasep.com
Eur. J. Lipid Sci. Technol. 2000, 236–240
2 Definition
Chromatography is a technique allowing the fractionation
of chemical products based on two main principles, an
equilibrium between a fluid phase (liquid, gaseous or su-
percritical) in which the products are soluble and a solid
adsorbent which has a delay effect [1].
Various implementations of this technique exist when
varying the mobile phase (physical state, composition),
the adsorbent nature (mineral oxides carbons, organic
polymers), the interactions between the two phases
(adsorption, partition, ion exchange, exclusion ...), the im-
plementation of the solid (fixed bed chromatography,
countercurrent moving bed, simulated moving bed) and
the goal of the separation (scale, price, toxicity ...).
In the case of fats separation, the desorbents the more of-
ten used are silica or silica bound to organic chain (polar
or not), and the interactions between stationary phase
and solute are adsorption or partition. Concerning the im-
plementation of the solid and the mobile phase, all the dif-
ferent possibilities can be used and will be detailed after.
Whatever the products are, a precise study must be done
for each case.
3 Batch chromatography:
technical evolutions
The simplest implementation is per HPLC (high-perfor-
mance liquid chromatography) which enables easy han-
dling of the mobile phase, large range of solvent and thus,
a large range of application [2].
It is a discontinuous process: for separation of the mixture
a precise quantity is injected at the inlet of the column,
products are separated inside the column depending on
their interaction with the mobile and the stationary phase;
at the outlet of the columns, the signal given by a detector
allows to orientate the different fractions in different lines.
The first main evolution is between an analytical tech-
nique to a preparative one. To jump this gap, it was first
necessary to have large column diameter with high effi-
ciency.
Good performance has been obtained by changing the
column design and using the dynamic axial compressed
technology [3]. Now, columns of more than 800 mm diam-
eter are available and give efficiencies equivalent to those
obtained on analytical columns (Fig. 1). These high effi-
ciencies allow to increase the productivity, taking into ac-
count mobile and stationary phase consumption, and so
reduce the cost of the process. The main drawback of this
technique is the toxicity of the solvents and the high dilu-