• How to improve the sustainability of palm oil production?
  • The global demand for palm oil will continue to rise, owing to the growing population and economy. Presently, tremendous efforts have been devoted to improving the sustainability of palm oil production. One strategy is to improve the oil extraction rate (OER) during the milling process.
  • Can process technologies improve the quality of palm oil produced?
  • However, the process technologies and the quality of palm oil produced have remained stagnant for the past decades. This paper reviews the latest development in the process technologies that can be applied in the palm oil milling process to improve the sustainability and efficiency of palm oil production, as well as the quality of the oil produced.
  • What is the share of palm oil in Africa?
  • The share of palm oil production by small, family-owned, estates is 30% worldwide and reaches 80% in Nigeria, Africa¡¯s largest producer 2. It is expected that the oil palm share of the market will need to increase to meet the doubled demand for vegetable oil predicted by 2030 (refs 3, 4, 5, 6).
  • How is palm oil extracted?
  • In the ¡®wet¡¯ process a liquid, usually water, is used to extract the oil from the milled palm fruits. Hot water or steam is used to leach out the oil from ruptured oily cells of the palm fruits. The hot water treatment also hydrolyzes gums, resins and any starch present as well as coagulates proteins.
  • Does palm oil ripe in Malaysia?
  • In Malaysia, the current planting material has been found to give approximately 25% of oil content (wrt FFB) in the ripe fruitlets (Corley 2018a, b). Therefore, harvesting the fruit bunches at the right stage of ripeness is essential to maximise the OER in the palm oil mill.
  • How to obtain high quality palm oil product?
  • To obtain high quality palm oil product, the process is strictly supervised since the plantation stage. The very first step is to maintain the quality of seedlings by performing cross-pollination of selected parent palms. Generally, there are three different forms of palm fruits namely dura, pisifera and tenera as shown in Figure 7.