How palm oil is made

Palm oil comes from the orange pulp around the nut, and the kernel inside is pressed separately into a different oil.

stations: 8
things upstream: 2
raw sources: 2
step from the ground: 1

The short version

Fresh fruit bunches are trucked to a mill and steamed, which stops the enzymes that spoil the oil. A rotating drum knocks the fruit off the stalks, stirred digesters mash it, and a screw press squeezes out liquor. Diluted liquor settles in tanks at 90 to 95 °C, and the skimmed oil is spun and vacuum dried into crude palm oil. Nuts left in the press cake are cracked for their kernels, which are pressed elsewhere.

Cut and haul the bunches

Fresh fruit bunches are cut in the plantation and trucked to the mill, where they are received and loaded for steaming.

Goes in
Oil palm fruit
Steam the bunches

Horizontal, vertical or continuous sterilizers steam the bunches, halting the enzymes and loosening the fruit. Condensate drains off as a waste stream.
Thresh off the fruit

Bunches tumble through a horizontal drum turning about 22 times a minute. Fruit falls through bars, often after a second stage, and the empty stalks leave for mulch or fuel.
Mash in the digester

Vertical digesters heat the fruit with steam while stirring arms mash it for about 30 minutes, loosening flesh from nuts and breaking open oil cells.
Screw press the mash

A continuous screw press squeezes out oily liquor and leaves a cake of fibers and nuts. Double screws get more oil and break fewer nuts.
Dilute and settle

The liquor is thinned with water, screened of coarse dirt and held in a vertical tank at 90 to 95 °C. Oil rises and is skimmed off the top.

Goes in
Water
Purify and dry

A high-speed centrifuge removes remaining impurities and a vacuum dryer pulls out moisture. The crude oil is then pumped to storage for the refinery.
Crack out the kernels

Nuts recovered from the press cake are cracked and the kernels separated. They go on to make a separate kernel oil.

End of the linePalm oil Next it goes into soap, glycerin, margarine and 5 more.

Worth repeating

Red palm oil gets its intense orange color from a high content of carotenoids.
Palm oil is much more efficient than other oils in land and water use, yet the deforestation it drives causes greater biodiversity loss than switching oils would.