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The Olive Oil Booster system is a combination of different technologies working together to maximize oil yield and quality in oily fruit processing. The equipment uses a “low” vacuum, enabling processes that are not feasible under atmospheric pressure. This provides significant benefits when processing materials sensitive to heat and oxygen.

Low Vacuum Technology

Vacuum conditions provide enormous advantages in pre-treatment processes for food products sensitive to temperature and oxygen, which would not be obtainable at atmospheric pressure.

Improved Oil Extraction

Preparing oily fruit pulp under low-vacuum conditions helps the oil droplets come together, reduces emulsions and interactions with microgels and improves the performance of the decanter. This leads to better extraction and higher oil yield compared to conventional malaxing technology at atmospheric pressure.

Improved Oil Quality

Vacuum conditions increase liquid flow into solids, enhancing phenol migration to oil and preserving aromatic compounds by removing air and preventing aroma loss.

Energy Saving

Improved extractability and decanter efficiency reduce energy consumption per kilogram of extracted oil. Vacuum conditions enhance performance at lower temperatures, saving heating energy. Additionally, the vacuum preparation of oily fruit pulp improves centrifuge extraction, significantly reducing water dilution in three-phase decanter extraction.

How does the Olive oil Booster help maximize olive oil yield while improving olive oil production?

The Alfa Laval Booster system is designed to replace the conventional malaxer step for paste preparation in oil mills. This mechanical method is capable of de-aerating the olive paste while controlling the temperature, resulting in key process and performance benefits. The innovative system works with a combination of thermal and separation solutions, with Plate Heat Exchanger (PHE) and olive oil decanter centrifuge as core technologies. This is what makes Alfa Laval Olive Oil system a class-leading technology, while maintaining the traditional process flow, as can be seen following it step by step:

As seen in traditional oil mills, olives are crushed, and the resulting olive paste is promptly transferred into the Booster under a specified vacuum pressure. The vacuum pressure facilitates rapid cooling and the removal of oxygen, as the temperature of the olive paste after crushing exceeds the boiling point of water.

Olive paste is agitated by the horizontal shaft with blades for a certain time at a settled pressure (deep vacuum) and temperature. Keeping the vacuum pressure below the boiling pressure at a settled temperature (i.e. 18°), olive paste is kept under boiling condition where a certain amount of water change physical phase from liquid to vapor.

The boiling at cold condition of olive paste is capable to produce bigger oil drop and higher amount of “free oil” rich in phenols compared to the traditional malaxing, with a consequent significative increase of oil yield of higher quality. The energy necessary for this physical phase change is given by hot water circulating into the jacket of vacuum tank heating the olive paste.

The little quantity of vapor produced during exposition of olive paste to the vacuum is condensed by a plate heat exchanger with cold water produced by a chiller and the little quantity of condensate vapor is returned to the olive oil extraction process. Because the paste is boiling at low temperature, there is not negative effect on the amount of positive aroma compounds of olive oil. On the contrary, some negative aroma compounds with light molecular weight such as ethanol, acetic acid and ethyl acetate can be removed from the oil by the Olive Oil Booster technology. 

This step of “free oil” release could be obtained entirely by the Olive Oil Booster, or by using it in combination with traditional malaxing.

The Olive paste prepared by the olive oil equipment is fed into the decanter centrifuge where the oil is separated from water and solids, working in two or three phases. Performance of the olive oil decanter in terms of capacity, oil clarity, residual oil in the husk and quantity of dilution water (in case of three phases), is strictly depending on the characteristics of the olive paste prepared during the previous operation.

Step 4. Improved oil clarification

With traditional malaxation system, the results on free olive oil production and oil drop dimension are strictly depending on many variables such as fruit ripeness, fruit moisture, fruit variety, crushing technology, etc. The paste preparation made by the Olive Oil Booster is globally improved in terms of oil drop dimensions and production of “free oil” with respect to traditional method. This improvement is obtained independently from fruit characteristics when compared with traditional method.

All this is traduced in a significant improvement of performance of the separation in the olive oil decanter with clear advantages in the reduction of the residual oil in the husk, increase of throughput capacity, improve of oil clarity and reduction of dilution water quantity when used. Improved oil clarity obtained by the decanter after the Alfa Laval Olive Oil system is also an advantage for the improved performance of vertical centrifuge for oil purification. An oil with fewer impurities from the olive oil decanter improves the efficiency of the vertical centrifuge and decreases the frequency of cleaning interruptions

Suitable to avocado oil processing

A line installation featuring combinations of an Alfa Laval decanter centrifuge and a Booster extraction unit is ideal for production of olive as well as avocado oil. It can also be used for other processing setups with origins in oily fruit. The equipment uses a “low” vacuum, enabling processes that are not feasible under atmospheric pressure. This provides significant benefits when processing materials sensitive to heat and oxygen.

Reap the benefits of the Olive Oil Booster

Producing high quality olive oil as cost-efficiently as possible is top of the agenda in many olive oil mills while making the quality of their products stand out. Alfa Laval Booster models can be configured in series of multiple units, to ensure a match with decanter centrifuge size/capacity.

Watch this video and get a glimpse of this cutting-edge solution that leads to a significantly higher quantity of "free oil" with a significantly higher quantity of phenols in the extracted olive oil.