PFAD (Palm Fatty Acid Distillate)

About This Product

Palm fatty acid distillate is recovered at the deodorisation stage of palm oil physical refining, where steam stripping under vacuum removes the free fatty acids and volatile compounds that would spoil the refined oil. Condensed and cooled, that stripped fraction is PFAD, a light brown solid melting at around 45 to 50 degrees Celsius. It is characterised by very high free fatty acid content, typically 85 to 95 percent, mostly palmitic and oleic, together with minor glycerides and a valuable residue of tocopherols, tocotrienols and sterols. That residue is commercially significant in its own right, as PFAD is one of the principal natural sources of vitamin E. For candle and soap manufacture the high acidity is an advantage rather than a problem: free fatty acids saponify directly with alkali without needing to be split first, and the predominantly saturated palmitic fraction gives a hard bar and a firm candle. The material is too acidic for edible use and cannot be alkali-transesterified, so its routes are saponification, splitting and distillation to recover individual acids, or acid-catalysed esterification. It is used in soap and laundry bar manufacture, candle and industrial compounding, fatty acid and vitamin E recovery, biodiesel esterification and animal feed. Bio Green Wax supplies PFAD to specification on free fatty acid, moisture and impurities, iodine value, titre and colour.