Canola Processing Plant & Machinery Solutions

Canola seed is small and round, so it is cleaned on graded screens where pods, stalk and chaff are scalped off the upper deck and sand and fines drop through the lower deck. Tramp metal and stones are taken out before the seed enters storage.

Seed is dried and then held in silos and day bins that feed the press house at a steady rate. Storing seed dry keeps it stable and stops heating in the bin.

Unlike sunflower or soybean, canola is not dehulled; the whole seed is warmed before flaking so the seed coat does not shatter on the rolls. Conditioning is done with indirect heat in jacketed vessels fed by the plant steam supply.

Conditioned seed is flaked between rolls, and the flakes are then cooked so the oil-bearing cells break down before pressing in a screw expeller, commonly as a pre-press followed by a full press. Crude oil runs off to the clarification tanks and the cake is carried away for meal handling.

Crude oil carries fine solids from the press, which are separated out before the oil is held in tanks. Clarified oil is stored ready for filling or for onward refining.

Oil is filled into bottles, capped and labelled, while the press cake is broken down and bagged as canola meal. Both streams are packed on the same site so oil and meal leave together.