NATURE 



THURSDAY, MARCH 20, 1919. 



THE VEGETABLE OIL INDUSTRIES. 



The Production and Treatment of Vegetable Oils. 

 By T. W. Chalmers. (The Engineer Series.) 

 Pp. xi+152. (London: Constable and Co., 

 Ltd., 1918.) Price 215. net. 



THE series of industries which is based on 

 the veg-etable oils as raw materials manu- 

 factures products which are of the utmost import- 

 ance to mankind. These industries utilise profit- 

 ably a very large capital, and in the ag"gregate 

 g-ive employment to a considerable number of work- 

 people. They are amongst the most highly or- 

 ganised industries in this country in the appli- 

 cation of science to their manufacture, in the 

 enlightened treatment of their workpeople, and in 

 their commercial and financial administration. 

 Consequently the literature, both scientific and 

 technical, dealing with them is a large one, but 

 none the less there is ample room for a book on 

 the somewhat novel lines developed by Mr. 

 Chalmers. He has put tc^ether in book form a 

 series of particularly well illustrated articles 

 which appeared from time to time in the 

 Engineer during 1917. The subject is treated in 

 a practical manner from the engineer's point of 

 view, and though a certain amount of chemistry 

 is introduced, this is essentially of an elementary 

 character; it is likewise unnecessary, as the 

 chemistry of the subject is fully provided for in 

 existing works. 



The vegetable oil industry in this country has 

 received a great stimulus from the conditions 

 brought about by the war. Previously it had 

 developed on international lines ; though the raw 

 products came in the main from British Colonies, 

 they were dealt with largely at Hamburg or 

 Marseilles and further elaborated in Holland, only 

 soap-making being an essentially British industry. 

 Now all branches are firmly established in this 

 country, and unless their growth is Hampered by 

 unwise legislation and taxation, a contingency 

 which is not altogether impossible, they are 

 likely to prove a great national asset. 



The method adopted by Mr. Chalmers Is to give 

 a detailed description in simple terms of the pro- 

 cesses in use throughout the industries from the 

 raw materials to the finished products. He has 

 succeeded in making this suflficiently detailed to 

 be of considerable value to those engaged either 

 in the particular section or in one of the allied 

 sections of the industry and thus already possess- 

 ing a general knowledge of the subject, as well as 

 to others outside the industry who may wish to 

 understand it. With such a work, criticism of 

 details is largely a matter of opinion and there- 

 fore unnecessary ; but on the general question it 

 Is perhaps a matter for regret that the author has 

 drawn his experience of the machinery he de- 

 scribes and illustrates from a very limited number 

 of firms, thereby to some extent misleading the 

 reader as to the alternative plant available. 

 NO. 2577, VOL. 103] 



The earlier chapters deal with the preparatory 

 machinery for the nuts and seed before they ent( 

 the oil mill proper and that required afterward- 

 to prepare them for the presses or extraction 

 vessels. Oil presses of both the Anglo-American 

 and Cage types are described, these sections being 

 particularly well illustrated. A useful chapter dis- 

 cusses the general arrangement of oil mills of 

 both types. 



A very good account is given of the solvent 

 extraction process, which, of course, has a wide 

 field of application outside the vegetable oil in- 

 dustry. The cake from the oil presses contains 

 somewhere about 8 per cent, of oil and is recog- 

 nised as a very valuable food for cattle ; the 

 residual meal from the solvent process contains 

 •only about i to 2 per cent, of oil, and has to be 

 carefully steamed to get rid of the last traces of 

 solvent. The early imperfect working of this 

 process has caused a prejudice against the meal 

 in the minds of farmers which is to-day entirely 

 unjustified. Furthermore, it is generally stated 

 that extracted oil cannot be refined for edible 

 purposes, though this is entirely contrary to 

 experience. The author lays stress on the fact that 

 recent progress has overcome the objections 10 

 the solvent process, and that pressing and extrac- 

 tion can be very profitably worked side by side in 

 the same mill. 



The refining of oils so as to make them 

 edible is a subject concerning which much secrecy 

 is usually exercised ; the industry has been very 

 much developed in Britain during the last few 

 years, and we^ should now be entirely independent 

 of the Continent for edible oils. 



The manufacture of margarine is omitted, and 

 the author passes to another section of the in- 

 dustry, that of oil-hardening, or hydrogenation. 

 Most of the vegetable oils are too liquid to be 

 used for soap-making or even for edible purposes ; 

 this is due to their being unsaturated — that is, 

 they contain an insufficient prof)ortion of hydrogen. 

 This element may be introduced into the molecule 

 by means of a nickel catalyst, whereby a liquid oil 

 can be converted into a solid oil of any desired 

 degree of hardness. The process is full of tech- 

 nical difficulties, and their practical solution, so as 

 to give a thoroughly eflRcient commercial process, 

 is one of the best achievements of the English 

 chemical manufacturer during the last twenty 

 years. It is worth recalling that but for this 

 process there would have been no soap and very 

 much less margarine during the last two critical 

 years. 



The problem of the technical manufacture of 

 hydrogen on a large scale had also to be solved 

 before hardening could be carried on com- 

 mercially. The author deals with these two 

 subjects in considerable detail and imparts much 

 information which has not hitherto been published. 

 The final chapters describe the manufacture of 

 soap, perhaps the best known part of the industry, 

 and with the recovery of the glycerine from the 

 soap lyes. As the soap industry has been worked 

 mainly for the sake of this by-product during the 



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