CANTAS - Motorised Cutter for Oil Palm Harvesting


Being a labor intensive industry, one of the key challenges facing the oil palm industry is overcoming an inadequacy of supply of labour workforce brought about by increasing oil palm hectarage and also the difficulty in getting workers from neighbouring countries.

Specification
Engine - 2 stroke FP petrol engine
Power- 1.3 hp
Maximum engine speed- 10,500 rpm
Working speed- 3,000 to 5,000 rpm
Fuel Capacity- 440cm 3
Maximum length- 3.6m (telescopic)
Total weight- 7kg
Average Production
Bunches harvested per hour: 70 - 90 bunches
Bunches harvested per day (8hrs): 560- 720 bunches

Cost of machine operation
Fuel (petrol) - 2.40 litre/ day
Fuel cost per day- RM4.56
Maintenance cost per day- RM0.51
Total cost per day- RM4.77

Optimal Enviroment for Oil Palm Plantation


Rainfall: 1500-2000mm

Humidity: More than 75%


Temperature: 25-30 Celcius

Soil Type : Deep, Drained and well structured with good water holding capacity

PH of Soil: 4 to 7

Terrain: Flat or Undulating land

Note: The information above is for reference purpose only

“Continued reliance on a strategy of setting aside land and marine territories as "protected areas" is insufficient to stem global biodiversity loss, according to a comprehensive assessment published today in the journal Marine Ecology Progress Series.”

There are five key technical and practical limitations this study states if we continue with heavy reliance on the protected areas strategy to curb biodiversity loss:

• Expected growth in protected area coverage is too slow
• The size and connectivity of protected areas are inadequate
• Protected areas only ameliorate certain human threats
• Underfunding
• Conflicts with human development


The authors underline the correlations between growing world population, natural resources consumption and biodiversity loss triggered by many human stressors. Protecting areas is mainly useful against overexploitation and habitat loss and isn’t addressing other human stressors like climate change, pollution, and invasive species.



According to Peter F. Sale, fellow author and Assistant Director of the United Nations University's Canadian Institute for Water, Environment and Health, “It is important to address the growth in size and consumption rate of our global population.” Both Mora and Sale agree the importance of recognizing our limitations and the heavy reliance we have on protected areas needs to change immediately. Furthermore, they say we need to allocate more time and effort to the difficult issue of human overpopulation and consumption.


"One of the most important things you can do is to keep learning more about our world, its wildlife and the problems it faces."
 For further information on this topic and learn more about this study go to:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-07/unu-ngb072211.php

More than 30 years of research, involving two generation of scientist has finally paid up. The researcher has found the best crossing material to produce a F-1 Supergene Hybrid Seeds which has novel superior characteristics. With this superior characteristics, the oil palm grower can double the production, double the sales, double the income, and finally double the rate of investment recovery!

The superior characteristics as follow:
1. Thin Shell - smal Kernel
2. High Oil Extraction Ratio (OER) from Fresh Fruit Bunches (FFB) ammount to between 26% to 28%
3. Beta Carotene 1000ppm up
4. High Kernel Oil Extraction Rate (PKOER) between 6% to 8%
5. Bigger fruits, bigger brunches, and more bunches per tree per year Up to 20-26 bunches/tree/year.
6. Earlier flowering, fruiting, and harvesting time.
7. Shorter palm height, less wastage, with half of the height increment of normal DXP Tenera Palm. ie. 25-35 cm growth as against 60 cm normal growth.
8. Longer harvesting period and longer re-planting cycle up to 35-40 years.
9. More tolerant to drought
10. More female ratio in fronds, ie. at least double the normal ratio.
11. Thicker stem and interogessed with more genetic material, therefore, more diversed in genetic base, and more resistant to fungal disease, ganoderma (basal stem rot)
12. More yield on the fifth year harvesting, the fresh fruit bunche (FFB) 40-45 MT/Ha/Year.
13. With Potential FFB Yield MORE THAN 50 MT/Ha/Year on OPTIMUM MAINTENANCE.

Source: IRHO Supergene Development Pte. Ltd.

Supergene Palm Tree

LOOKING AFTER THE PLANTATION

36. Cultivation
    You must remove the weeds around the young oil palms.
    This work is done with a hoe or a machete.
    During the first year, cultivate 6 times.
    Remove all the weeds for 2 metres around each stem.
    During the first months, the weeds between rows have to be cut.
    If you leave the weeds, the cover crop will not grow well.
37. Trimming the plants
    You must always cut away the dry leaves of the oil palm.
    In order to cut the leaves without damage to the oil palm, your tools must be well sharpened.
    Cut the leaves very close to the stem, so that no other plants can grow in the axil of the cut-off leaves.
    Remove from the trunk any plants (ferns) that may grow in the axils of the leaves.
    Remove also the male flowers.
38. Applying fertilizer
    The oil palm needs a lot of mineral salts to form its leaves and fruit clusters.
    When the oil palm is young, it needs above all nitrogen.
    When the oil palm has begun to produce, it needs a lot of potash.
    Potash increases the number of fruit clusters, and makes them bigger.

Source: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

MODERN OIL PALM CULTIVATION

1. A modern oil palm plantation needs a grower who has learned how to cultivate oil palms.
   Growing selected oil palms is not just a matter of picking the fruit; it is a modern crop.
   The grower must learn how to do his work well.
   The grower should ask for advice, so that he learns to do better and better.
   The grower must think about his work and plan it, so that he can always do his work at the right time.
   Selected oil palms give the grower much more work than the natural trees, but they yield much more.
   An oil palm grower is a modern farmer.
   With the money he earns he can buy for his family what they need, and he can modernize his farm.

BEFORE STARTING THINK THINGS OVER CAREFULLY

2. To make a modern oil palm plantation takes money.
   Most often you will have to pay workmen for clearing the site of the plantation and removing tree stumps.
   Then you must buy seedlings and fertilizers.
   Unless you apply fertilizers to the oil palms when they are still young, they will not grow well and you will have to wait a longer time before you can begin to harvest.
   You may also have to pay workers to help you look after the young plantation. Weeds must not be allowed to get in the way of the oil palms, and the trees must be protected from damage by rats and agoutis.
   All this work takes a lot of time, and this means that you may not have enough time to look after large fields of food crops.
   You may have to buy food for your family.
   Before you start an oil palm plantation, you must calculate carefully whether you will be able to pay all these expenses.
3. To grow oil palms takes a lot of work.
   Before planting your oil palms, you have to clear the forest and remove the tree stumps.
   Then it takes a lot of time to sow the cover crop, dig holes in the plantation, take the seedlings out of the nursery, carry them to the plantation and plant them.
   All this work needs to be carefully done; you must take your time.
   Never hurry if you want to be successful with your plantation.
   Once the oil palms are planted, you must put wire netting around the young trees, you must spread fertilizer and keep watch over the plantation.
   Young oil palms need a lot of care. It is better to make a smaller plantation, but look after it carefully.
   Once the oil palms have begun to produce, the fruit must be harvested at the right moment.
   If you cannot pick the fruit at the right moment, it becomes too ripe, many clusters will drop and the quality of the fruit will be less good.
   4. To grow oil palms takes much time and much care.
   Do not try to cultivate too large an area, or the work will be badly done.
   It is better to cultivate a small plantation and to do the work well.
   A small plantation that is well looked after can yield more than a large plantation that is badly looked after.

LIFE OF THE OIL PALM

5. The oil palm may have a very long life.
   It is important to know about the life of the oil palm.
   If you know all about the life of the oil palm, you will understand better how to cultivate them.
   If you do not take care of the seeds, they will germinate only after several years.
   At the research stations, the seeds are kept in a room where it is always very hot.
   This makes the seeds germinate sooner, after 90 to 100 days.
6. Each seed germinated is planted in a small plastic container.
   A new leaf grows every month.
   The young seedling stays in the container for 4 to 5 months.
   When you see a left with two points (bifid leaf) coming up, transplant the seedling out into the nursery.
7. The seedling stays in the nursery for 1 year. When it has about 15 green leaves, it is planted in the palm grove.
   The seedling is therefore 16 to 18 months old when it is ready to be planted in the palm grove.

8. When the young oil palm has been planted in the palm grove, it produces male flowers.
   The flowers form at the base of each leaf.
   For several months, the oil palm produces only male flowers.
   After that, for several months, it produces only female flowers.
   The male flowers are grouped in spikes.
   The female flowers form other spikes.
   The male flowers fertilize the female flowers.
   Fertilized female flowers turn into a cluster of fruit.

9. The oil palm has no branches.
   It has a trunk and leaves. The trunk, sometimes called a stipe, is the stem of the palm.
   At the tip of the stem there is one bud - one only:
   This is the growing point, which makes the oil palm live and grow.
   If the growing point dies, the tree dies as well.
   The growing point of the adult oil palm produces 20 to 25 leaves every year.
   It is most important that the growing point should produce many leaves, because there will be a flower at the base of each leaf.
   If there are many leaves, there will be many flowers. And if there are many flowers, there will be many clusters of fruit.
   The oil palm grows well and produces a lot in regions where it is very hot, where the sun is very strong, and where it rains a great deal.

THE FRUITS OF THE OIL PALM YIELD OIL

10. The clusters consist of spikelets.
    The spikelets contain the fruit.
    Before getting the oil out of the fruit, the fruit must be separated from the spikelets.
11. The fruits of the oil palm consist of the following parts:
    Pulp: the pulp is yellow; when the pulp is crushed it yields palm oil.
    Seed: inside the shell of the seed is the kernel; when the kernel is crushed, it yields palm kernel oil.
    The kernel also contains the germ.

12. The fruits of all oil palms are not the same.
    
    • They are not all of the same size.
    • The pulp is not equally thick in all of them.
    • The shell is not equally thick.
    • Some kernels have no shell at all.
    There are different varieties of oil palm:
    
    • dura palms have kernels with a thick shell;
    • pisifera palms have kernels with no shell;
    • tenera palms have kernels with a thin shell.

13. When oil palms bear many and large fruit clusters, they yield a lot of oil.
    But to get a lot of oil, each fruit must also contain a lot of pulp, a shell that is not very thick, and a big kernel.
    Research stations have developed varieties of oil palm which produce many large clusters with fruits that have a lot of pulp, a thin shell and a big kernel.
    These are selected oil palms.
    In order to get a lot of oil, the female flowers of a dura palm are fertilized with the pollen from a pisifera palm.
    Once they are fertilized, the female flowers turn into fruits.
    These fruits are of the tenera variety.
    The fruits of the tenera palm have a lot of pulp, a thin shell and a big kernel.

WHY CULTIVATE OIL PALMS?

14. In traditional farming, nobody cultivates oil palms.
    People simply pick the clusters of fruit from the oil palms that grow in the forest.
    But these oil palms produce little.
    The oil is extracted by traditional methods, and a lot of oil is left in the pulp and the kernel.
    But nowadays oil palms are grown on modem plantations.
    These contain selected oil palms with big yields.
    The clusters of fruit are sold to mills which extract all the oil from the pulp and the kernels.
    These oil palm plantations bring in money
    
    • for the growers who sell the fruit,
    • for the workers who work in the mills,
    • for the government which can sell the oil to foreign countries.
15. The growers can also earn money by raising beef cattle.
    Beef cattle can be fed with the green fodder from the cover crop grown in the palm groves.
    The grower can also feed his cattle with palm-kernel oil cake, that is, what is left over after extraction of the palm kernel oil.
    Palm-kernel oil cake is a protein-rich food.

WHERE TO CULTIVATE OIL PALMS

Oil palms are cultivated in the regions where they grow well and where there are oil mills.
To repary the grower the oil palm needs a region:

16. Where it is hot all the year round
    The oil palm grows well where it is hot all the year round: between 25 and 28 degrees C.
    If the temperature drops, the oil palm produces fewer leaves and is more often attacked by diseases. It therefore yields less.
    A hot temperature enables the oil palm to make many leaves and to produce many clusters of fruit.
    A lot of sunshine
    Where there is a lot of sunshine, there will be strong photosynthesis, provided the oil palm is in soil which gives it water and mineral salts.
    The leaves grow large, the fruit ripens well, and there is more oil in the fruits.
    Plentiful rain
    If it does not rain much, or if it does not rain for several months, the leaves do not grow well.
    If there are few new leaves, there are few flowers and few clusters of fruit.
    There is less yield.
17. Where the soil is flat, deep, permeable and rich.
    The oil palm needs a flat soil.
    If the soil is not flat, transport is difficult and costs a lot.
    Erosion is severe; the water carries away the earth.
    The oil palm needs a deep soil.
    The roots of the oil palm cannot develop il they meet a hard layer.
    They cannot take up water and mineral salts that are deep down.
    If the oil palm does not have enough water, yields are low.
    The oil palm needs a permeable soil.
    The oil palm does not grow well if water remains around its roots for too long.
    The oil palm needs a rich soil.
    In order to produce many large clusters of fruit, the oil palm needs a lot of mineral salts.
    If the soil is poor, mineral salts can be added by applying fertilizers.
18. Where there are oil mills.
    With traditional methods, a lot of oil is left in the pulp and the kernels.
    The machines of the oil mills extract all the oil contained in the pulp and the kernels.
    Selected oil palms produce many clusters of fruit.
    To get all the oil out of these clusters yourself, you would have to spend a lot of time.
    Before planting selected oil palms, make sure you can sell the fruit clusters to a mill.
19. Where business companies or extension services can give the grower advice.
    It takes much money and work to make an oil palm plantation.
    The grower must use modern methods in order to pay for his expenses and earn money. He will need advice on:
    
    • how to choose the site for his plantation
    • how densely to plant it
    • how to look after the plantation
    • how to apply fertilizers
    • how to protect the oil palms against disease

THE OIL PALM NURSERY

20. It is difficult for a grower to make the seeds of oil palms germinate.
    Growers buy young seedlings which already have four or five leaves. Seedlings can be bought from research stations or extension services.
    The young seedlings are then put into a nursery.
    The nursery is a small plot in which the young oil palms develop.
    When the oil palms are big enough, they are planted out in the palm grove.
    Nurseries cause a lot of expense and need much care.
    It would be very expensive for one grower alone to make a nursery; it is better to make the nursery jointly with other growers.
    It is very important to make a success of the nursery, so as to get fine young plants.
    A seedling that has not grown well in the nursery will make a poor oil palm.
    To have fine seedlings in the nursery you must:
    
    • choose a good site and prepare it well,
    • choose the finest seedlings,
    • water them, protect them against erosion and weeds, give them fertilizers, protect them against insects and diseases.

HOW TO MAKE A NURSERY

21. Choosing the site
    The soil should be fairly rich and well prepared.
    It is best to clear a bit of forest for the nursery plot.
    If you clear a forest site for the nursery, pull out all the trees and burn them. Burning all the wood helps to control certain diseases which might attack the roots of the oil palms, and it also makes the soil more fertile. Spread the ashes all over the plot.
    If you put the nursery on a field which is already cultivated, pull up all the old crops: cocoa trees, coffee trees, oil palms.
    Burn all the wood.
    When the site is well cleared, it needs deep tilling.
    You should till 40 centimetres deep with a hoe or a tractor.
    To improve the soil structure, you can then sow a green-manure crop, like Centrosema or Crotalaria.
    When these crops have grown, work them into the soil by tilling again.
    Then apply fertilizers: 500 kilogrammes of dicalcium phosphate per hectare.

LAYOUT OF PATHS AND NURSERY BEDS

22. Nursery bed is the name for the strip of soil where the oil palm seedlings are planted.
    It is best to make the nursery on flat ground.
    But, if the ground slopes, the beds must lie across the slope.
    The beds should be 45 metres long and 3.5 metres wide.
    The soil of the beds should be well worked to make it quite flat.
    After that, apply a dressing of fertilizer. For instance, at La Mé, Ivory Coast, 250 kilogrammes of 10:10:20 fertilizer are applied per hectare.

23. Making holes for seedlings and transplanting
    To know where to make the holes for your seedlings, make a pattern.
    At the places where you have put your little pegs, make a hole with a Richard plant setter.
    Then put a seedling with its ball of earth into each hole.
    You must give the seedlings a lot of water. But do not water when it is hot; it is best to water in the evening and the morning.
    To protect the soil against erosion, mulch it.
    Cover the ground with herbage or cluster residues. Leave a ring of 20 centimetres of unmulched ground around each seedling.
    If you mulch with cluster residues, put them down only three months after transplanting, so that the insects do not attack the young leaves.
    If you mulch with herbage, you must replace the herbage when it rots. Then hoe the soil.
    If you cannot get enough water for the seedlings, transplant them into the nursery at the beginning of the rainy season.
    At the end of the rainy season, the seedlings will be strong enough to get through the drought.

PUTTING UP SHELTERS

24. In certain regions shelter has to be put up over the nursery.
    This protects the young seedlings from a disease called blast.
    These shelters are made with posts and bamboo sticks.
    To make the shelters more solid, put two posts together.
    The posts should be 2.5 metres high. The bamboo sticks are tied to the posts with lianas.
    Finally, put palm fronds over the bamboo sticks.
    In Benin, shade for the young oil palms is provided by planting castor-oil plants in the nursery.
    If you make a shelter, you need not mulch, but you must hoe very often.
    Get rid of all the weeds, and always keep the soil loose.
    Three months after transplanting, if the seedlings have grown well, apply monthly to each plant 15 to 20 grammes of a mixture of ammonium sulfate and potassium chloride.
    Spread the fertilizer mixture in a ring 10 centimetres from the seedling and water.
    Hoe to work the fertilizer into the ground.
    The seedlings stay in the nursery for about 1 year.
    You must plan, therefore, to make the nursery about 1 year before you want to plant your palm grove.

Antioxidants
Antioxidants are substances that inhibit oxidation. They are added to oils and fats to provide greater stability and longer shelf life by delaying the onset of oxidative rancidity.

Bleaching
This is a process whereby pigments, impurities, trace metals; gums and oxidized materials are removed from oils and fats by absorptive cleansing using bleaching clays or activated carbon. Bleaching of edible oils or fats is generally carried out under vacuum at 70 篊 to 120 篊.

Blending
Single or straight oils and fats are often unable to satisfy the complex technical specifications prescribed for a particular product application. Only by blending, i.e. mixing two or more straight or modified oils and fats, can the correct balance of properties such as melting point, plastic range, color, texture, iodine value, etc. be obtained.

Carotenes
Natural constituents that give crude palm oil its bright orange-red color and which are completely destroyed during refining. Carotenes can also be partially destroyed by oxidation under adverse conditions during production, storage and transport of crude palm oil. However, upon request, palm oil can be specially processed to maintain the carotenes.

Centrifugation
Substances having different densities will separate by gravity. For instance, oil is lighter than water and easily forms a separate upper layer. The effect of gravity can be accentuated by centrifugation, i.e. by rotating the mixture to be separated in a container. Centrifugation is often used in oil mills and refineries to separate impurities and water from oils and fats and also fat crystals from a fat slurry after addition of a surface-active agent.

Chemical Refining
This refers particularly to the removal of free fatty acids by alkali. The alkalis used are usually sodium hydroxide (caustic soda) or soda ash, either singly or in combination. One novel chemical refining technique uses aqueous ammonia as the alkali.

Cloud Point
This is a test to determine the temperature at which oil begins to cloud as a result of crystallization under controlled cooling. The cloud point is related to the unsaturation of an oil. In general, the higher the unsaturation of an oil, the lower its cloud point will be.

Cocoa Fat
This fat has a unique chemical composition, consisting mainly of the triglycerides POS (palmito-oleo-stearin), POP (palmito-oleo-palmitin) and SOS (stearo-oleo-stearin). lt is hard and brittle at room temperature but melts very sharply below body temperature. It therefore gives chocolate its desirable properties of 'snap' and 'melt-in-the-mouth', and is highly valued.

Cocoa Butter Equivalents (CBE)
These are fats designed to have a glyceride composition similar to that of cocoa butter. Their properties are similar and they are compatible with cocoa butter in mixtures for chocolate manufacture.

Cocoa Butter Substitutes (CBS)
These are fats usually based on laurics, i.e. on palm kernel oil or coconut oil. They have snap and melting properties similar to cocoa butter but a different chemical composition. They are not compatible with cocoa butter and the presence of more than 20% cocoa butter in a mixture with them leads to softening and / or bloom formation.

Crystallization
Crystallization is the three-step process of forming crystals and may take place from a melt or from a solution. The three steps are supercooling or super saturation; formation of crystalline nuelei; and growth of crystals. The process is important for fats in order to produce the desired texture in a solid product, or as a preliminary to fractionation.

Degumming
Fats and oils contain complex organo-phosphorus compounds referred to as phosphatides, or more commonly as gums. They are removed during processing by a variety of treatments collectively referred to as degumming. The process involves treatment with water, or phosphoric acid, or polybasic organic acids, either individually or in combination, followed by centrifuging the precipitated material or by its absorption on a bleaching earth or filter.

Deodorization
This process involves removal of those trace components, present in all edible oils, which give rise to odors and flavors. It is accomplished by the application of heat, steam and vacuum.

Fatty Acid Composition
The Triglyceride molecules that make up oils and fats are each composed of three molecules of fatty acids and one molecule of glycerol. The fatty acid composition of a fat or oil is expressed as the percentage of each of the various fatty acids present in the mixture.

Fractionation
Fractionation is the process of separation of an oil or fat into two or more fractions. The oil is cooled and crystallized under controlled conditions and the solid separated from the liquid by filtration or centrifugation. Fractionation of a fat is made possible by solubility differences between the component triglycerides. The fractions obtained have different physical and chemical properties from the original oil, and have wide applications.

Hydrogenation
This process involves addition of hydrogen to the double bonds of unsaturated acids in the molecules of an oil. By doing this, the properties of the fatty acids are changed and therefore also the properties and physical behavior of the oil. This chemical reaction is carried out by reacting the oil with gaseous hydrogen at elevated temperature and pressure, in the presence of a catalyst, usually nickel. Hydrogenation of oils and fats is also known as hardening.

Interesterification
The fatty acids of palm oil can be rearranged in relation to their position on the triglyceride molecules. The rearrangement, which occurs in a random manner, is conducted in the presence of a catalyst, and is termed interesterification. The rearrangement brings about a change in the physical properties of the oil, which may leave the products more useful for making margarine, vanaspati and shortening.

Iodine Value (IV)
IV is a measure of the total number of unsaturated double bonds present in an oil. The determination of iodine value involves the addition of halogen in the presence of potassium iodide and titration with standard sodium thiosulphate using starch solution as the indicator. Of the various procedures available, the most widely used is the Wijs method.

Oleic Acid
This is the most widely distributed of all fatty acids, found in practically every vegetable and animal fat. Rich sources are olive and peanut oils and palm olein. Oleic acid contains 18 carbon atoms and one double bond in the cis configuration. Palm oil contains about 40% oleic acid.

Oxidation
When oils or fats are oxidized, the unsaturated fatty acids react, resulting in rancidity. The most common mechanism of oxidation is a free radical chain reaction. This process is retarded by antioxidants such as tocopherols and tocotrienols, and accelerated by prooxidants such as trace metals and heat. The primary products of oxidation are hydroperoxides. These then decompose into secondary oxidation products such as aldehyes and ketones.

Palm Olein
Palm olein is the liquid, more unsaturated fraction separated from palm oil after crystallization at a controlled temperature. The olein consists of a more homogeneous mixture of triglycerides and has properties and uses which are different from those of the original oil.

Palm Kernel Oil
This is the oil obtained from the kernel of the oil palm fruit. Its chemical composition is quite different from that of palm oil, which is obtained from the flesh of the palm fruit. Palm kernel oil is a lauric type, similar to coconut oil.

Palm Stearin
Palm stearin is the more saturated and more solid fraction of palm oil. Its fatty acid composition is variable depending on the process employed to isolate it, ranging from 53% to 88% for saturates, 16% to 37% for monounsaturates, and 3% to 10% for polyunsaturates. Palm stearin is used in formulating products that require a higher degree of saturation, such as margarines and shortenings.

Physical Refining
Physical refining may be defined as the removal of free fatty acid from an oil by the action of high temperature, high vacuum and live steam. lt is also referred to as steam refining. This process is normally carried out in a single step with deodorization.

Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids (PUFA)
These are fatty acids having two or more double bonds in their carbon chain. The most common polyunsaturated fatty acid is linoleic acid. Corn oil, sunflower oil and soyabean oil are some vegetable oils that are rich in PUFA.

Rancidity
Rancidity is a condition in which an off-flavor has developed in edible oils or fats, or manufactured food products; it is caused by oxidative deterioration. Primary oxidation products are odorless and tasteless but certain secondary decomposition products have particularly potent off-flavors and are detected by the palate at extremely low concentrations. The term rancidity is sometimes also used to describe the soapy taste resulting from the hydrolysis of lauric oils, which is due to the short chain fatty acids formed.

Refining
All crude oils and fats when freshly produced contain unwanted impurities. These consist essentially of free fatty acids, gums, trace metals, odoriferous materials and water. The various processes used to remove all these entities are normally known collectively as 'refining'.

Slip Melting Point
Fats consist of a complex mixture of glycerides and therefore do not have sharp melting points, unlike pure chemical substances. The slip melting point of a fat is defined as the temperature at which a column of fat in an open capillary tube moves up the tube when it is subjected to controlled heating in a waterbath. Because of their polymorphic behavior, the slip point of some fats is dependent on the previous treatment of the sample.

Splitting
Fat splitting is usually carried out with steam at high temperature and pressure (e.g. 260 'C and 55 bar) to give glycerol and a mixture of fatty acids. This process opens the gateway to the oleochemical field.

Soapstock
In the chemical refining of crude oils, the free fatty acids are removed by neutralization with alkali and settle to the bottom as alkali soaps, known as soapstock.

Stearic Acid
Chemically, stearic acid is an 18-carbon saturated fatty acid. Commercially, the term is used for mixed solid acids of various compositions. Stearic acid is used for industrial purposes in the rubber and oleochemical industries.

Trans Fatty Acids
Trans fatty acids are formed during the partial hydrogenation of an oil. Some of the unsaturated fatty acids present are changed from their natural, bent cis shape to a straight trans shape like that of the saturated acids. In consequence, many of the physical properties of trans-acids, such as melting point, are nearer to those of the saturated acids, although double bonds are still present.

Tocotrienols & Tocopherols
These are components of Vitamin E. In both unprocessed and processed forms, palm oil has significant concentrations of tocopherols and tocotrienols. Both act as powerful nutritional antioxidants, probably helping to reduce cellular damage due to oxidative metabolism, as well as that resulting from the action of toxic chemicals and pollutants in our environment.

Source: American Palm Oil Council