Recovery of oil from spent bleached earth

Abstract

The invention discloses a process to recover oil from spent bleaching earth recovered from vegetable oil refining process. The process involve three sub-processes comprising of reacting the spent bleaching earth with a solvent selected from a group consisting of toluene, acetone, xylene, isopropyl alcohol or n-hexane at a temperature between 35° C. to 50° C.; separating the solids and liquid from slurry formed in the previous step; and extracting oil from the liquid fraction obtained in the previous step. The separation of the solids and the liquid from slurry can be formed in two steps. The slurry mixture of solids and liquid is first separated into a solid fraction and a liquid fraction. The solid fraction so separated still contains a significant portion of oil. Therefore the solid fraction is reacted with some solvent. The next slurry of solids and liquids is again separated into a solid fraction and a liquid fraction.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.