Cottonseed Oil

Cottonseed oil is obtained as a byproduct of cotton production. Even though the production of cottonseed has fallen significantly since the invention of synthetic fibers, cottonseed oil still has a proportion of the edible oils market. The oil is very rich in unsaturated fatty acids, linoleic acid constituting about two-thirds of these. Compared to other crude vegetable oils, cottonseed oil is hard to refine.

With its 3-stage neutralization process and miscella refining, GEA Westfalia Separator provides a choice of two efficient process lines.

3-stage neutralization starts once a GEA Westfalia Separator decanter has clarified the press oil obtained from pressing the cottonseed.

In the first stage of chemical refining, a separator separates the soapstock with the fatty acids neutralized by acid and caustic. The second stage of rerefining the oil then follows; this is a second treatment of the oil with caustic to remove as much as possible of the gossypol. Gossypol is a pigment which gives raw cottonseed oil an almost black colour. In the third stage, another separator performs the task of removing the wash water from the oil which has been washed with hot water. The pure cottonseed oil can now be dried, bleached and deodorized.

An alternative to this process is so-called miscella refining. This process refines the crude oil as early as the extraction stage and was developed specifically for the neutralization of cottonseed oil to remove gossypol (a particularly stubborn pigment) effectively.