Development of a Palm Oil Press

Abstract

Palm oil is the major cooking oil for various
homes on the West Coast of Africa. This is
because it contains Vitamin A and D (e.g.
especially vitamin A which is good for the
eyes) unlike the other cooking oil such as
groundnut oil, cottonseed oil, and shell nuts
oil. It is widely known that the production
of palm oil has been by local methods which
are highly stressful and time-consuming
with low output and less quality. This
project is therefore concerned with the
production of better means of producing
palm oil by introducing a presser that
reduces stress and can produce a better
quantity and quality of palm oil. This
project clearly states the various extraction
systems and extraction methods. The major
part of the project also includes the design
consideration for the hydraulic pressing
machine, the design parts, and its
construction. The circumferential stress and
the longitudinal stress were determined.
Also, the volume of the pressing cage was
determined and the collector capacity was
known. However, with the diameter of the
pressing plate, the area of the pressing plate
was determined and the force on the
pressing plate was equally known. Also, the
machine capacity was known to be
285.25KN/M2 from the design. Lastly, from
the test result, the average volume of oil
received was calculated and the machine
efficiency after proper calculation was
determined to be 89.6%.