Editing Palm oil (section)

===Refining===
{{see also|Edible oil refining}}
[[File:Balung Tawau Sabah Apas-Balung-Mill-02.jpg|thumb|A worker walking near the border of&nbsp;an oil mill in Malaysia. Palm oil production is an important part of economies in many parts of rural Malaysia, but is also a source of [[environmental conflict]].]]

Crude PO can be refined to remove its non-triglyceride components.

# Bleaching removes color from the oil. This is achieved by adding a clay absorbent called [[bleaching earth]] in a vacuum mixer.<ref name=Lidu2016>{{cite journal |last1=Lidu |first1=Seri Rahimah |last2=Mohamed |first2=Nurul‘Ain |last3=Klemeš |first3=Jiří Jaromír |last4=Varbanov |first4=Petar Sabev |last5=Yusup |first5=Suzana |title=Evaluation of the energy saving opportunities for palm oil refining process: Sahabat Oil Products (SOP) in Lahad Datu, Malaysia |journal=Clean Technologies and Environmental Policy |date=December 2016 |volume=18 |issue=8 |pages=2453–2465 |doi=10.1007/s10098-016-1252-6|bibcode=2016CTEP...18.2453L |s2cid=114530616 }}</ref>
# Filters remove the clay from the oil.<ref name=Lidu2016/>
# The oil enters the deodorizer, which is responsible for removing [[free fatty acid]]s (FFA) generated by hydrolysis. One type of deodorizer works by distillating out the FFAs using a set of different temperatures. The FFA is collected as "palm fatty acid distillate" (PFAD).<ref name=Lidu2016/> PFAD is itself a valuable product used in the manufacture of [[soap]]s, [[washing powder]] and other products.
# The final, refined oil is called "refined, bleached and deodorized palm oil" (RBD PO). RBD PO is the basic palm oil sold on the world's commodity markets.

RBD PO is also known as {{vanchor|white palm oil}}. It can be further [[fractionation|fractionated]] using the different melting points of its components. The part with a higher melting point, which crystalizes out as a solid earlier, is called [[palm stearin]]. It consists of mostly saturated fats. The remaining liquid part is called [[palm olein]].<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Tong |first1=Shi-Cheng |last2=Tang |first2=Teck-Kim |last3=Lee |first3=Yee-Ying |title=A Review on the Fundamentals of Palm Oil Fractionation: Processing Conditions and Seeding Agents |journal=European Journal of Lipid Science and Technology |date=December 2021 |volume=123 |issue=12 |doi=10.1002/ejlt.202100132|s2cid=240505689 }}</ref> It is also possible to fractionate at a different point of processing, even with crude palm oil.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Deffense |first1=E. |title=Fractionation of palm oil |journal=Journal of the American Oil Chemists' Society |date=February 1985 |volume=62 |issue=2 |pages=376–385 |doi=10.1007/BF02541408 |s2cid=84577079 |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/225491696}}</ref>

RBD PO, or "palm [[shortening]]", is extensively used in food manufacture. It is valued for its low polyunsaturated fat content, which offers high stability against [[rancidity]] and allows it to replace hydrogenated fats in a variety of baked and fried products.