A fully automated plant for extracting a refined colourant, produced mainly for the overseas market where it is in great demand, was opened recently at Brits by Trade and Industry Minister Alec Erwin. The new plant, built at a cost of R15m, replaces the previous extraction facility that was destroyed by fire a year ago.
Opening the Colour-X plant of Extracted Oils and Resins, a member of the Sapekoe Group, Minister Erwin said that by adding value to South African produce the sophisticated production of the plant was in line with the government's strategy for an integrated manufacturing economy, without which the country could not be part of the world market.
Extracted from paprika, oleoresin is a deep red concentrate highly prized as a natural colourant used in the manufacture of a number of products, including food and beverages, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics and even in poultry feed to colour egg yolks and meat. It contains betacarotene, an important element in the diet of humans.
The paprika fruit, supplied in bales by farmers to the factory, is first milled and pelletised before being conveyed to the extraction plant.
The oleoresin is extracted in a continuous PLC-controlled process using hexane, an extraction solvent. The intrinsically safe plant utilises state-of-the-art mechanical and electrical technology to handle a potentially highly hazardous process.
The miscella - or hexane containing the red, oily fraction - is passed through an evaporation and filtration system to recover the hexane for recycling, and to separate the red colourant from the oil for further processing in a polishing plant, which produces a very high quality, finished product.
The Colour-X factory markets nearly all of its high-value, low-volume product overseas, where it realises competitive market prices. Automation has helped to eliminate human error and to step up production substantially.
By-products of the process are paprika spice - of a high quality, sterilised during the extraction process, preventing mould contamination - and cattle feed high in betacarotene, which is beneficial to the health of animals.
In addition to being supplied with dried paprika pods by Sapekoe's own farms in KwaZulu-Natal, the factory provides farmers in the Brits area and areas as far afield as the Limpopo and Orange River Valleys with an opportunity to grow an alternative crop to tobacco and cotton.
Moeller Electric supplied all the switchgear and PLC equipment. This comprises a PS4-341 MMI central processing unit and a range of local and remote I/O units in excess of 300 inputs to control the electric motors, control valves and other equipment used in the process.
The automation system was engineered by Heintech of Newlands, Pretoria East, and uses Intellution FIX V7.0 scada software for plant control and viewing to communicate with the PLCs via an I/O serial communication driver. Two nodes are implemented - one the scada server and the other a view client for remote networked development and viewing.
Alex Bronkhorst, Manager of the Colour-X plant, commented on the 'excellent cooperation' from Moeller Electric, which had produced 'a plant that ranks among the best in the world.'
Bronkhorst added: "At present we are looking at standardising on Moeller equipment in the next phase of automation of the plant." This phase covers the weighing of the bales on scales which will be linked to the management information system and the entire process from breaking down the bales, disposing of the seeds, hammering the material into a fine powder and compressing it into pellets, which are then conveyed in half-ton batches into the extraction plant.
"The whole operation will involve sequential starting with PLCs. In the event of a stoppage anywhere along the line, the PLCs will automatically shut down the units up to that point."
Bronkhorst added that work on this phase of automation had already begun and would be in full operation by the middle of next year.
Moeller Electric
(011) 975 3937
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