• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.41 no.3
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• pp.177-183
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• 2016

Purpose: Mee (Madhuca longifolia) is an economically important tree growing throughout Sri Lanka. Its importance is mainly attributed to its oil with high nutritional and medicinal values. However, an inefficient extraction method limits its use. This study revealed the possibility of extracting oil from mee seeds by using a screw-type oil expeller. Methods: A popular screw-type oil expeller was used in the experiment. Extract bar clearance and speeds of the main spiral shaft were altered to increase the oil expelling efficiency of the machine. The quality of refined oil at the optimum oil yield was determined by measuring the refractive index, saponification value, iodine value, unsaponifiable matter, free fatty acid, and specific gravity. Results: An optimum yield of 35% oil was obtained when the machine capacity was 30 kg/h and energy consumption was 0.13 kWh/kg. This optimum machine condition was observed at an extract bar clearance of 0.5 mm and a main spiral shaft speed of 90 rpm. The refractive index, saponification value, iodine value, unsaponifiable matter, free fatty acid, and specific gravity of the oil were 1.4, 203, 59, 3.5%, 0.2%, and 0.907 g/cm3 respectively. Color of the mee oil was closer to yellow, which is revealed by the lightness value (L) of 24.93 and positive value (b) of 11.81. Conclusion: The screw-type oil expeller can be used for economically extracting mee oil on a commercial scale.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural Science
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• v.43 no.5
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• pp.761-768
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• 2016

Recently, swine production costs have increased due to increased feed cost, especially the price of corn and soybean meals. Soybean meal is traditionally an expensive ingredient, but the price of corn has dramatically increased because of increased biofuel production. This change has resulted in the swine industry looking for alternatives in order to reduce feed cost, resulting in decreased production costs. Thus, various alternatives have been used as feed ingredients to replace corn, soybean meal, or other expensive ingredients. One othercandidate may be palm kernel co-products that are a by-product of oil extraction from palm fruits. Palm kernel co-products have not been used in swine diets due to high fiber content and imbalanced amino acids compared with corn and soybean meal. However, recent studies showed that palm kernel co-products did not have any negative effects on growth performance of pigs when they replaced some proportions of corn and soybean meal. In addition, palm kernel co-products may provide some physiological properties to pigs by modifying gut microbiota and/or immunity of pigs, resulting in improvement of growth and health of pigs. Therefore, the value of palm kernel co-products were reviewed as one of the alternatives for corn, soybean meal, or other major ingredients in swine diets.