Simulation of crude palm oil dilution and clarification in a palm oil mill using computational fluid dynamics: grid dependency and parametric studies

Abstract

Oil extraction rate (OER) is a useful tool for assessing the performance of palm oil mills, where a higher OER is favorable. The OER can be enhanced by improving the quantity of palm oil recovered from fresh fruit bunches processed. In this study, the simulation of dilution and clarification of crude palm oil (CPO) in a clarifier of a palm oil mill was performed using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) approach. Grid dependency and parametric studies were conducted on the fluid region inside the clarifier. From the results, the utilization of medium-sized mesh managed to achieve grid-independent solutions, with the average percentage error of 12.4% based on the comparison of the actual and simulation data. Moreover, the input parameters (i.e., velocity, temperature, and oil mass fraction of the inlet) significantly influenced the oil mass fraction of the outlet based on the coefficient determination (R2) values. As a conclusion, CFD has the potential to enhance the OER of a palm oil mill by enabling the study of parameters influencing dilution and clarification of CPO without the need of conducting experiments.