Vegetable fats and oils are what are most commonly called
vegetable oils. These are
triglyceride-based, and include cooking oils like
canola oil, solid oils like
cocoa butter, oils used in
paint like
linseed oil and oils used for industrial purposes. Pressed vegetable oils are extracted from the plant containing the oil (usually the seed), using one of two types of oil press. The most common is the
screw press, which consists of a large-diameter metal screw inside a metal housing. Oil seeds are fed into the housing, where the screws mash the seeds, and create pressure which forces the oil out through small holes in the side of the press. The remaining solids, called
seed cake, are either discarded or used for other purposes. Oil presses can be either manual or powered. The second type of oil press is the
ram press, where a piston is driven into a cylinder, crushing the seeds and forcing out the oil. Ram presses are generally more efficient than screw presses. There has been recent interest in improving the design of mechanical oil presses, particularly for use in developing countries. A press developed at
MIT's D-Lab, for example, is capable of exerting 800–1,000psi to extract peanut oil. Industrial machines for extracting oil mechanically are call
expellers. Many expellers add heat and pressure, in order to increase the amount of oil extracted. If the temperature does not exceed 120 °F, the oil can be called "cold-pressed". In modern vegetable oil production, oils are usually extracted chemically, using a
solvent such as
hexane. Chemical extraction is cheaper and more efficient than mechanical extraction, at a large scale, leaving only 0.5–0.7% of the oil in the plant solids, as compared to 6–14% for mechanical extraction. ==Macerated oils==