Team Members: Daulet Jailaubekov, Yovana Racic, Adam Best, Riya Suthar, Conor Marko
Faculty Advisor: Dr. Vince Leung
Industry Partner: Bunge Limited
Project Description: This project focuses on the area of the plant responsible for processing crude canola oil. Canola oil extraction begins from cleaning, flaking, and conditioning the received canola seed. The crude canola oil is sent to refining where it undergoes settling, filtration, chemical refining, degumming and bleaching. Canola oil has a low amount of saturated fat, allowing for higher efficiency within parts like engines compared to alternate biofuels like soyabean oil. These positive environmental attributes, along with fuel efficiency contribute to the increase in Canola oil market demand for non-human consumption. For instance, from 2019 to 2025, the goal of the Canola oil Industry is to increase the global production from 18.7 to 25 million metric tonnes. Therefore, there is a need to expand the canola processing line at Bunge to accommodate for the foreseeable increase in market demand, as Canada exports about 90% of canola oil globally. Additionally, canola oil production has increased by 7.4% in Canada over 2020 partially due to increased oil consumption and global demand. It is anticipated that the process at Bunge will produce 40% more canola oil by the end of the project.