Extraction Technologies For Medicinal And Aromatic Plants - Unido

EXTRACTION TECHNOLOGIES FOR MEDICINAL AND AROMATIC PLANTS
extractor or Pipkin peel oil press. Here, the fruit is washed automatically,
sorted according to size and then cut in two halves. The halved fruit is
passed between two cylinders which remove only the juice by gentle pressing
without affecting the oil glands on the surface. The residual halved peels
are extracted for essential oil. In the Pipkin peel oil press, for example, oil is
expressed by two close stainless steel cylinders with capillary grooves running
around the circumference. The expressed oil automatically comes out
of the grooves and there is no need to spray water..
4.3.1.5 Modern Machines
Nowadays, complete mechanization has been achieved and
whole fruit processing machines have been developed. These machines either
crush whole fruit and then separate the oil from the aqueous phases
by distillation or centrifugation, or they express the oil in such a way that it
does not come in contact with the juice during the process. The oil extractor
developed by Brown International, California, liberates the essential oil from
whole citrus fruit. Oil removal is achieved by lightly puncturing the entire
surface of the fruit with over three million sharp stainless steel points confi
gured in the form of rotating rolls. An adjustable speed differential between
adjacent rolls controls the amount of pressure applied to the fruit. Whole
fruits roll across the brown oil extractor (BOE, Figure 1), which is made of
toothed rollers partially set in a fl owing bed of water which propels the fruit
across the machine and simultaneously punctures the peel to release the
oil from the glands. The fruit proceeds to the extractor and the oil-water mixture
goes to centrifugation and to the oil recovery chamber.
Figure 1: Brown oil extractor
4.3.1.6 FMC Whole Fruit Extractor
Food Machinery Corporation (FMC) of San José, California, has
developed many designs and improved extractors in which both the juice
and the volatile oil are extracted without getting mixed with each other. Further
details are available at: http://fi les.asme.org/ASMEORG/Communities/History/Landmarks/5549.pdf.
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