Several small confectionery processing plants are located in fresh sunflower seed-producing for wholesalers states to take advantage of local distribution.
Some seeds are roasted like peanuts, while others are shelled and pitted and sold as confectionary "nuts."
Food manufacturers buy sunflower seeds to sell directly to consumers as packaged foods or as ingredients in other food products.
Most of the husks are used as turkey bedding, although some are ground into pellets to provide fiber for livestock feed.
As exports of unrefined sunflower oil have declined, exports of refined oil have increased.
As of 2009/09, 81,000 tonnes of refined oil were exported, mainly to Canada.
Sunflower oil is cold pressed and requires minimal processing to produce a light, aromatic oil suitable for some culinary uses.
Sunflower oil production includes seed cleaning, seed peeling, seed milling, pressing and crude oil extraction, crude oil refining.
Refining: Prepared oilseeds are passed through a magnet to remove trace metals before being separated from the skin.
and left a special cleaning device to remove other foreign materials.
Hulling: Oily sunflower seeds contain 20-30% of the hull, which is sometimes removed before oil extraction to ensure the quality of sunflower oil and meal.
Peeling is done when the grain moisture after cleaning is 5%.
The usual process involves the cracking of the grains by the mechanical action of a centrifugal or pneumatic shell, which can also be supplemented by abrasion.
Then we blow with the resulting mixture to separate the shells from the core.
Some sunflower oil seeds have a thin shell that is difficult to separate and therefore can be removed to prevent oil spillage.
Grinding: The prepared sunflower seeds are passed through a magnet to remove metal debris before the shell is removed.
For further surface pressing, using mechanized grooved rollers or hammer mills, the dehulled seeds are crushed into a coarse powder of suitable consistency.
The food is then heated to facilitate oil extraction.
When the oil is pressed, some impurities are released with the oil and must be removed before the oil is edible.
Pressing: The heated food is continuously fed into the screw press.
The pressure typically increases from 68,950 to 206,850 kPa as the oil passes through the cracks in the barrel and is extracted.
Solvent extraction of excess oil: The cake left in the press can be processed by solvent extraction for maximum yield.
A volatile hydrocarbon (usually hexane is used) dissolves the oil cake and then extracts the oil by distilling the solvent, which then passes through the material and collects at the bottom.
Trace Solvent Removal - 90% of the remaining solvent in the extracted oil is simply evaporated and collected for reuse.
The remaining solvent is recovered using an extraction column.
The oil vaporizes and the lighter solvent floats to the top and condenses.
Oil refining: Oil refining includes removing color, smell and bitterness.
