Stavanger, Norway
Hall C , Stand 342-26
Rice Starch
The rice grown mainly in India and the Far East, and on a smaller scale in the USA, Southern Europe and many other countries, contains up to 75 percent starch depending on the variety. This means the plant is one of the main sources of starch worldwide.
Its very small particle size, white color and neutral taste make rice starch particularly advantageous for the starch processing industry. Rice starch is thus used to make coated or chewable tablets with soft or hard coatings, for example, as it achieves a particularly smooth surface. Rice starch is also highly significant in the food and cosmetics industry.
GEA Westfalia Separator supports the wet process used to obtain pure starch milk from broken rice. 3-phase nozzle separators for washing play a key role here.
Integrated process line from GEA Westfalia Separator for obtaining rice starch by the wet process
In the first step of the wet process, the broken rice has to be steeped in caustic soda for around twelve hours. This gives the nutrient tissue a more elastic structure, allowing it to be split open. Disintegration is effected in mills and breaks open the nutrient tissue so that the components which can be separated are present in suspension.
In the following extraction stage, all the relatively large plant fibers are separated out of the suspension so that the suspension only contains starch particles, fine fibers and protein residues. Once this raw starch milk has had the sand and coarse impurities removed, a 3-stage starch concentration and washing process with 3-phase nozzle separators takes place to separate the flow into pure starch milk, fine fibers and a protein solution. Decanters are used for the final dewatering of the starch milk.
To achieve a higher yield, the screened starch milk from fine fiber screening is returned to the washing process. The protein fraction from the first washing stage is subjected to a further process stage to obtain protein. The hull and fiber residues from extraction and screening can be used as animal feed.