48 TECHNOLOGY & PRODUCT NEWS
ALFA LAVAL
D3 PRO 3-PHASE OIL RECOVERY PROCESS
How much would you save in a year if you can recover oil for an additional of 0.1% to FFB/hr?
M
ost plant managers today are calling for a more sustainable crude palm oil process that can recover more oil, minimize costs and optimize yield. To achieve all the requirements to meet the challenges and at the same time be profitable in one process may sound too good to be true. But what if Alfa Laval could break this myth by improving the absolute oil loss of 0.1% to FFB/hr? The Alfa Laval D3 PRO process is a revolutionary design that takes all the challenges nowadays into consideration, to bring performance beyond current practice. Needless to say, the success does not come naturally. Alfa Laval has been involved in the palm oil industry for decades and it was only after countless of meetings with plant managers, operators and consultants, they have now an answer to the demands
of process that is less in cost, produces more oil and minimum effluent. The D3 PRO improves your process and saves you money right from the start. That is because Alfa Laval system requires no dilution water. With its patented feed zone, Alfa Laval 3-phase decanter can separate undiluted crude oil, even at high capacity. This represents significant savings in time, energy consumption, water usage and labor.
How Does D3 PRO Work?
Unlike the traditional 2-phase system, D3 PRO can avoid oil loss by going through the third phase to recover oil from the heavy phase. It is estimated that the average plant loses 0.40% of oil to FFB in the separation process. With the D3 PRO, however, the heavy phase is sent to our high speed, disk stack centrifuge where oil is recovered and re-routed in the system. This step in the process can amount to significant increases in yield and profit. For instance, if a plant processes
ASIA PALM OIL MAGAZINE | April-June 2015
250,000 tons/year and recovers an additional 0.1% of oil to FFB, the amount of recovered oil will be 250 mt. If one metric tonne of oil is valued at USD 920, this represents an additional revenue of USD 230,000 per year.
Maximum Oil Recovery
Sengfook Liew, Separation Manager, SEA Competency Centre, who was actively involving in the R&D of D3 PRO, had an ideal oil recovery room in his mind. “An effective oil clarification room should be able to achieve maximum oil recovery, meaning that there shall be lowest oil loss, be simple to operate, give consistent results and minimize effluent discharge. This is the basic requirement for a good oil recovery system.” “In the palm oil mills’ environment, any system introduced must be easy to operate and not require highly skilled personnel. The remoteness of most mills and the difficulty of acquiring skilled workers is constantly a problem.”
