Future prospects for palm oil refining and modifications

Palm oil is rich in minor components that impart unique nutritional properties and need to be preserved. In this context, refining technologies have been improved, with the dual temperature deodorizer, the double condensing unit and the ice condensing system. The DOBI is a good tool to assess quality of the crude palm oil and its ability to be properly refined. Specially refined oils open a market for new high quality products (golden palm oil, red palm oil, white soaps, etc.). Palm oil is a good candidate for the multi-step dry fractionation process, aiming to the production of commodity oils and specialty fats (cocoa butter replacers). New technological developments allow quality and yield improvements. Palm oil and fractions are also valuable feedstock for enzymatic interesterification in which applications are for commodity oil (low-trans margarines and shortenings) and for special products (cocoa butter equivalents, infant formulation, …).