Simulation of coconut oil fatty acids in the deodorize column with aspen hysys

RBD coconut oil is a refined and fractionated product of Crude Coconut Oil (CCNO) which is used as cooking oil. RBD coconut oil is one of Indonesia's export commodities whose demand is quite large. In general, the process of making RBD coconut oil, copra, is used as raw material. Coconut Oil made from copra still has a high free fatty acid (FFA) content so it can't be consumed directly. Coconut oil produced from copra still has a relatively high FFA content (between 3-5%) due to enzymatic hydrolysis, so further purification is needed, including: refining, bleaching and deodorizing, so that coconut oil can be consumed. The process of separating FFA from coconut oil lies in the deodorization process with high temperature and low-pressure steam. FFA flows through the steam under vacuum and high temperature conditions without alkaline neutralization. The top product is Coconut Fatty Acid Distillate (CFAD), and the bottom product is RBD coconut oil. Therefore, this research focuses on how to separate fatty acids in crude coconut oil in a deodorize column using Aspen Hysys simulation. The results of this research found that the greater number of trays, the flow rate of steam input and the greatest vacuum pressure applied to the deodorize column, the less FFA content in the resulting RBD coconut oil product. To produce RBD Coconut Oil with quality of FFA 0.085% to 0.089%. Increasing the number of trays from 33 stages to 55 stages and vacuum pressure from 5 kPa to 4 kPa can reduce the production load as much as 0.089%.