Vimal Organics was incorporated as a Pvt. Ltd. Co., in 1984 and was converted into a Public Ltd. Company in 1994.

The Company started manufacturing Activated Bleaching Earth in 1987 and since then has been serving the Edible Oil refineries.

During this more than a decade old journey, the Company has pioneered various new ideas to provide better value to our esteemed customers.

* We were first to use fresh HDPE bags; the earlier norm was to use second hand gunny bags.

* In order to give the benefit of deemed credit of excise duty, we were first to register ourselves under
Central Excise Act.

* We were the first to obtain BIS Certification. May we say with pride that our products has never been
rejected.

* Of late we have been selling out of our country as well. We have exported more than 1000 Mt. of product
in one year. We are the first to export our product on a continuous basis. Our national and international
orders are more of a repetitive nature. For our efforts we have been given the "U.P. Exporters Green
Gold Card" by UP Government.

* We are the first to obtain ISO Certification in the Bleaching Earth industry in India.

* In order to improve our working the Company is working to obtain new ISO-Certification under improved

and more stringent ISO-9000 which shall be put in operation around March 2001.

Activated Bleaching Clay or Fullers Earth is used for decolarization. Bleaching of edible oils is essentially a selected adsorption of coloring matter and other impurities on exposed solid surfaces in contact with the liquid to be decolorized. Bleaching Earths provide the large surface areas effectively by virtue of their structure, history of formation and activation. Bleaching earth are made by Acid Activation of Bentonites.

Clays produced by the diversification of volcanic ash are geologically termed "Bentonites". Such clays are characterized by their power to absorb water greatly in the process, and remaining in suspension in thin water dispersions and are characterized by rapid slaking and slight swelling when placed in water. Usually, such Bentonites exhibit high decolorizing ability after acid treatment.

The relative proportion of lime and soda is leading factor in determining their physical properties. A high ratio of soda to lime indicates a swelling bentonite while a low ratio characterizes the non-swelling type.

Bentonites vary in colour. It can be grey, blue, yellow, red and brown. The pH varies from 4 to 10.

Bentonites are usually composed mainly of montmorillonite, although some may consist of the rarer clay minerals beidellite, saponite, hectorite and nontronite. Mineralogically, bentonites are 75 percent or more of montmorillonite with fragments of kaolinite, lattite. felspar, gypsum, unweathered volcanic ash, calcium carbonate, quartz and traces of other minterals. The mineral glauconite (green sand), nontronite, beidellite and a few other ores of sedimentary origin have been successfully acid-activated but the relative efficiency of the product was not equal to that obtained from high grade sub-bentonites in which montmorillonite predominates.

MONTMORILLONITE

The structure of montmorillonite is a gibbsite layer sandwiched between two silica sheets to form the structural unit. Such units are loosely held together in the e-direction with water between them; depending on the amount of water, the e-dimension varies from 9.6 to 21.4 Ao .

The substitutions are mainly within the octahedral layer (Mg2+, Fe2+, etc, for Al3+) and to a much less extent within the silicate layer Al3+ for Al4+). Extensive replacements give rise to a number of modifications. Nontronite is an iron-rich member in which Al3+ is largely replaced by Fe2+. Saponite has a large replacement of 2 Al3+ by Mg2+, and a little Al3+ for Sl4+. Hectorite results in the total replacement of 3 Mg2+ for 2 Al3+ and shows Ll-for-Mg substitution. Replacement of Al by Cr and Zn yields the mineral Yolkonskite and Sauconite respectively. Beidellite (the name retained after Weir and Greene-Kelly, 1962), is an Al-rich variety resulting from the partial replacement of silicon by aluminium in the montmorillonite lattice.

ADSORPTION PROPERTIES OF CLAY MINERALS

Certain natural clays such as montmorillonite possess adsorption properties mainly because of their colloidal nature which stems from their very small particle size. Other important properties are base exchange capacity and hydrophily. The relationship between these properties with respect to a particular clay mineral may best be explained through its crystalline structure.

In montmorillonite, isomorphous replacement in the octahedral layer provides an excess charge on the lattice. The electrostatic force binding the layers originates at the centre of a unit at a distance of about 4.5 A0 from the surface. The force is sufficiently strong to hold exchange ions at the surface of the units but not to hold the units themselves together tightly. Therefore, water may enter the interlayer space forcing units apart. The lattice expansion may also vary with the degree of hydration of the cations. With swelling, the units are held more and more loosely and readily cleave into extremely thin flakes on addiction in water exposing a large surface area to the suspending agents.

ACTIVATION OF BLEACHING EARTHS

BLEACHING clays are subjected to various physical and chemical treatments to enhance their adsorption capacity and to give them certain desirable properties with respect to their applicability. All such processes are called "Activation". The most common methods are acid and heat-activation.

ACID ACTIVATION

Activable clays are sub-bentonites which mostly consist of low swelling type montmorillonite; interstratified structures of illite and montmorillonite with appreciable base exchange capacity are also activable. The ease with which the bases may be removed or replaced of course varies with the type of structure as well as the particular base affected. In effect, the acid treatment replaces exchangeable K+Na+Ca2 by H+ in the interlamellar spaced and also leaches out a part of the Al3 +, Fe3+ and Mg2+ from the lattice structure, thus rendering the clay physically more porous and electrochemically more active.

During acid leaching, the basic components of all montmorillonite are probably attacked first at the edges of the plate lets with penetration then proceeding inward. Magnesium, aluminium and iron proceed from octahedral positions to exchange sites and then into solution. The removal of aluminium and other ions is not affected through unbroken silicon-oxygen layers which sandwich both sides of the basic lattic constituents, on account of the relatively small openings in the silica-oxygen network. The acid penetration thus proceeds into the interior of the structure from the edges leaving a framework possessing a large area.

At this stage half the aluminium atoms have been removed from the structure together with two hydroxyl groups. The remaining aluminium atoms are tetrahedrally-coordinated with the four remaining oxygen atoms. This change from octahedral to tetrahedral coordinate leaves the crystal lattice with a negative charge which is balanced by hydrogen. Ion. In other words, the acid-activated clays become negatively charged on the crystal surface and are neutralized by hydrogen ions at the interface. This explains the source of acidity which is considered to be related to activity for bleaching oils. As the acid treatment proceeds further, greater dissolution of octahedral aluminium occurs and a silica-tetrahedral selection of left at the end.

The reaction can be controlled to give an optimum amount of alumina to keep the structure intact, which maximizes the selective adsorption capacity.

However, activation in not just the creation of additional surface by increasing the amount of activating acid. Complex factors are involved, such as the nature of the bases, the pore-size distribution, the acidity of the clay and the SlO2/Al2O3 ratio. These factors are again dependent on the clay mineral composition on the bleaching earth and the method of activation.