APROVEITAMENTO DE CONDENSADO E UTILIZA O DE VAPOR FLASH NO EXPANDER

In an industry of extraction of soybean oil, there are several steps since the grain leaves the fieldto obtain the refined oil, ready for human consumption. Among these steps, the preparing of the grains hasgreat importance in the process because it represents potential to achieve significant increase in the yield ofextraction. Still, the preparation of grain has two sub-steps of great importance. They are the conditioningand the expansion of the grain mass. These sub-steps take place inside the conditioner and the interior ofthe expander, respectively. In the conditioner occurs the pre-cooking of the beans through indirect injectionof steam. In the expander occurs the expansion of the grains through direct contact with steam at pressureshigher than atmospheric pressure, which causes several changes in the mass that will suffer the extractionprocess. In this work we present a study on reducing the consumption of steam used in the expander, usingpartially the condensate from the vertical conditioner. This condensate passed through a flash tank and thesteam formed was directed to expand, thereby decreasing the amount used steam from the boiler.