Volume 2

Chemical technology and analysis of oils, fats, and waxes / by J. Lewkowitsch.

  • Lewkowitsch, J. (Julius), 1857-1913.
Date:
1904
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: Chemical technology and analysis of oils, fats, and waxes / by J. Lewkowitsch. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    CHAPTER XIII COMMERCIAL PREPARATION OF OILS, FATS, AND WAXES Operations having for their object the preparation of oils, fats, and waxes date back to the remotest times in the history of mankind. Hence the technical appliances used for their production range from the simplest contrivances up to the very elaborate machinery in vogue at present. Some of the oldest appliances still survive to-day, such as the extremely primitive methods employed in the production of palm oil, the expression of olives, the collecting of carnaiiba wax, etc. No doubt, the first supplies of vegetable oils and fats were obtained from fruits, such as those of the palm and olive trees. The oils were recovered in an exceedingly crude fashion, either by storing the fruits for some time in holes in the ground, when fermentation of the mass set in and the oil rose to the surface, or by boiling the fruit in water. An advance in the manufacture was reached with the expression of oils from fruits in some kind of a rough press, exemplified by pack- ing the fruit into sacks, and covering these with boards weighted by stones. A further stage was marked by the production of vegetable oils from oleaginous seeds; these were originally ground up between stones, as is still being done nowadays in East India. Since oils and fats are obtainable in all countries of the world, it will be readily understood that even the crudest and oldest methods are still in existence. The consideration of these modes of manufacture lies beyond the scope of this work. Nor is it intended to give an exhaustive survey of the subject and describe in detail the more recent manufacturing operations. We shall therefore only briefly glance at the most advanced technical processes and appliances used in large scale operations. The processes employed for the production of vegetable oils and fats divide themselves naturally into two classes :—(1) The recovery of oils by expression, and (2) the recovery of oils by extraction with volatile solvents. (1) The Recovery of Oils by Expression This branch of industry has emancipated itself from the early primitive methods through the invention of the hydraulic press and