Soap treatment and Tall oil production

Demand for tall oil products continues to grow. Successful tall oil production depends upon getting the most out of raw materails, ensuring process efficiency, and safeguarding product quality. Using centrifugal force with the Pinola technology platform drastically improves the yield. Only minutes are required to separate soap from black liquor and produce high-quality crude tall oil.

Paper mill 640x360

Cleaner black liquor, fresher tall oil soap and higher tall oil yield

Whether used as a component in food products, adhesives, varnishes, inks or drilling fluids, high-quality crude tall oil is in demand.

Raise process efficiency with Pinola systems

Alfa Laval understands what it takes to achieve process efficiency throughout your tall oil production plant. In partnership with HEAD Engineering, we supply Pinola technology platform, which combines several technologies into complete systems for soap treatment and the production of crude tall oil:

  • Pinola BLiSS (black liquor soap separation) which removes kraft soap from black liquor
  • Pinola TOPP (tall oil production plant) which processes the soap to a high-quality crude tall oil

Both Pinola BLiSS and TOPP are based on Alfa Laval technology, where the separation takes place in disc stack centrifuges.

Higher efficiency, smaller footprint, increased quality

Using centrifugal separators eliminates the need for large volume holding tanks, thereby reducing the plant footprint while increasing separation efficiency. It also reduces process residence time from days to minutes, resulting in a fresher soap, better product quality and higher yields. With a small hold-up volume in the reactor and separator, it is possible to achieve faster control of the pH , which results in lower sulphuric acid consumption.

More sustainable operations

Pinola BLiSS and TOPP also offer big advantages in terms of enhancing the sustainability profile of your kraft pulp mill by minimizing environmental impact. Both feature a closed system design, which ensures minimal environmental effects. Both also significantly reduce the consumption of sulphuric acid compared to conventional technology, which minimizes the environmental footprint and impact on the mill’s sulphur balance.

Benefits of Pinola BLiSS and TOPP

  • Continuous, fully automatic operation
  • Compact installation and high throughput
  • Reduced sulphuric acid consumption
  • Automatic cleaning
  • Significantly cleaner black liquor
  • Higher yield of soap compared to conventional technology
  • Less fouling in the evaporation stage
  • Higher capacity in the recovery boiler
  • Increased yield of high-quality crude tall oil

Grow your pulp mill profits with more efficient separation

Alfa Laval offers pulp mills a wide range of solutions for extraction of by-products and recovery of process chemicals. Our separation equipment brings you benefits such as high yield, high product quality, low operating costs and compact installations.


See what Alfa Laval can offer within soap treatment and tall oil production