Investigation of the Utilization of Local Fuller Earth for Treatment of Vegetable oils

Abstract

The properties of fuller earth had made it valuable in many industrial applications. In general, chemically activated betonies and other activations of betonies may be used as adsorbents in the bleaching of edible oils and other materials. In this research, crude fuller earth samples obtained from the Blue Nile beach near the Ministry of Energy and Mining was treated by milling, washing, purification and drying. The pretreated samples were then activated with 98% concentrated sulfuric acid and then utilized to bleach a peanut oil. It was found that the efficiency of bleaching was at 56.75% as compared with that of a non-activated fuller earth with 54.05% bleaching efficiency. Based on this result, it was found that local fuller earth can be utilized for bleaching vegetable oils when chemically activated.