PROCESSES FOR TREATING PALM KERNEL CAKE

A process for extracting palm kernel oil and mannose from expeller pressed palm kernel cake (PKC) consisting of first expeller pressed PKC and second expeller pressed PKC comprising: 1. milling of the expeller pressed PKC; ii. subjecting the expeller pressed PKC to one or more further physical and/or chemical treatments; iii. mixing the expeller PKC with an effective amount of one or more enzymes selected from mannanase, xylanase, cellulase, pectinase and proteinase under aqueous conditions to obtain an aqueous PKC hydrolysate and hydrolysed PKC; 1v. separating the PKC hydrolysate from the hydrolysed PKC by decantation, filtration or centrifugation, wherein the PKC hydrolysate is subjected to a clarification step to afford an oil containing phase and a-saccharide-containing phase which is then subjected to one or more further separation/purification steps and to further steps of filtration, decalcification, concentration, chromatography and crystallization; v. recovering said oil from said PKC hydrolysate and recovering said one or more monosaccharides from said PKC hydrolysate; wherein the mannose is recovered in an amount of about 20-30% (w/w) based on the expeller pressed PKC and about 10-20% (w/w) palm kernel oil based on PKC is recovered; wherein the hydrolysis step is performed at a temperature in the range of about 45-55?C, at a pH in the range of about 3-8, for a period of time in the range of about 24-72 hours; and wherein the PKC hydrolysate contains about 20-30% mannose based on the weight of PKC.