d. This resulted in the increase in viscosity. Crystal growth is inversely proportional to the increase in viscosity (Kellens, 1994). The higher the viscosity, the exchange of materials at the surface of crystals is more limited resulting in slower crystal growth (Ibid). Low degree of supercooling tend to produce perfect crystals because the incorporation of molecules on the growing crystal will only take place when the newly formed molecule is exactly in the
right conformation (Timms, 1994). The formation of stable, larger and uniform crystals is desirable to facilitate separation of the oil from the crystals during the filtration process and thus producing higher quality stearin with minimum olein entrainment. Crystal size ranges between 4.34 to 22.29µm