Reflex Extractor

The latest extractor to be developed for mainstream oleaginous material extraction applications is a rotary-type extractor with fixed slotted floor and bevel gear drive trademarked as the Reflex Extractor. This extractor was developed by Kemper et al. (15) of the French Oil Mill Machinery Company in 1995 and patented in 1997. The Reflex Extractor is an improvement on the Rotocel Extractor. One of these units installed at the Louis Dreyfus solvent extraction plant in Argentina has processed in excess of 9000 metric tons of soybeans per day, making it the world s highest capacity extractor. 

Figure 9. (a) Soybean cellular structure. Courtesy of USDA-ARS. Special thanks to Dr. Robert Yaklich and Dr. Charles Murphy at the Soybean Genomics and Improvement Laboratory in Beltsville, MD, for creating this electron transmission micrograph especially for this chapter, (b) Crown extractor. Courtesy of Crown Iron Works, (c) Reflex extractor. Courtesy of De Smet Group, (d) LM extractor. Courtesy of De Smet Group. 

A second type of extractor widely used on soybeans is the deep-bed (34 m deep), rotary-basket extractor (Fig. 11.13), such as the Reflex extractor marketed by Desmet Ballestra. Countercurrent solvent-to-flake flow is accomplished by rotating the baskets of flaked material while the solvent and miscella sprays, the miscella collection cells, and the marc discharge remain stationary. The bed is divided into cells or baskets to prevent back mixing of oil-lean miscella with oil-rich miscella. The drained marc discharges when the basket rotates to the position above the discharge hopper. 

Fig. 11.13. Depiction of a deep-bed, rotary basket extractor ("Reflex" extractor, Desmet Ballestra North America, Marietta, GA).

The reflex extractor (a) design features and (b) installed unit. (Courtesy of De Smet S.A.)... 

Fig. 34.15. Reflex "basket or circular type" 10,000 ton/day extractor. Note Basket revolves within shell. (Courtesy of Desmet Ballestra Oils and Fats, Brussels, Belgium.)...

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