Rice bran is a by-product of the rice milling process that has economic potential by virtue of highly nutritious rice bran oil contained within the bran. As a kind of popular cooking oil, rice bran oil is extracted from the germ and the inner husk of rice. It is noble for its high smoke point and mild flavor, making it suitable for high-temperature cooking methods such as stir frying and deep frying. What’s more, eating rice bran oil helps lower cholesterol, fight diseases, enhance the immune system, and fight free radicals and more. Rice bran oil manufacturing processes mainly includes rice bran oil expelling, extraction and refining.
Rice Bran Processing Chart
Rice Bran Oil Screw Press
Rice bran oil expelling relies on high quality rice bran oil expellers. After the well prepared rice bran is put into the feeder of the expeller, a screw worm will transport the rice bran advance. As the screw worm moves, the space becomes smaller and smaller, thus squeezing rice bran oil out. Then the fresh rice bran oil seeps out through the small openings in the bottom of the squeezing barrel where the rice bran oil cake cannot pass through, and thus separating rice bran oil from oil cake.
Other Rice Bran Oil Presses
After collecting rice bran oil cake, rice bran oil extraction comes with the help of food grade solvent, usually hexane. Rice bran oil extraction works on the principle of counter current and moving bed with variable bed height and different speed mechanism to ensure the permit of excellent penetration and percolation of solvent for absolute extraction. Then the distillation begins in the vacuum, and the extracted rice bran oil is collected by vaporizing solvent out for later recovery.
Then the rice bran oil is pumped into the refining machinery to produce different grades of rice bran oil. The refining process usually includes: filtering, neutralization, degumming, decolorization, deodorization, and dewax, etc.
Conventional Rice Bran Oil Refining Process
Physical Rice Bran Oil Refining Process
