Journal of Oil Palm Research Vol. 8 No. 1, December 1996, p. 20-18
REFINING OF RED PALM OIL
A process has been developed for the refining of crude palm oil (CPO) to produce Red Palm Oil (RPO) without destroying the carotenes. It involves a pretreatment of CPO followed by deacidification and deodorization using molecular distillation. The RPO produced has less than 0.1% of free fatty acid (FFA) and retains more than 80% of the original carotenes and vitamin E originally present in the CPO. The quality of RPO is similar to that of ny refined, bleached and deodorized palm oil in terms of FFA and peroxide value (PV). The carotene profile of RPO showed that most of the carotenes were retained. The process has been commercialized and the product is expected to be in the market soon.
KEYWORDS:* Palm Oil Research Institute of Malaysia,
P.O. Box 10620, 50720 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.