• Can palm oil refineries use empty fruit bunch fiber as biomass fuel?
  • The drive for sustainability has inspired palm oil refineries to use palm empty fruit bunch (EFB) fiber and palm kernel shell (PKS) as biomass fuels. Their usage, however, poses various challenges such as entanglement of fibers and blockage of fuel flow, as well as the tendency of PKS to form clinker in furnace.
  • 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.
  • How can Malaysia improve the upstream productivity of palm oil?
  • Given the regulatory restriction and limited land for new plantation, the Malaysian government, through the Economic Transformation Programme, has outlined a plan in 2010 to improve the upstream productivity of the palm oil industry. One of the targets is to achieve an OER of 23% by the year 2020.
  • What is the primary feedstock in palm oil mill?
  • The primary feedstock in palm oil mill is the palm fruit. Palm fruit is a drupe, oval in shape, and contains a kernel. The kernel, surrounded by the fruit wall (pericarp), is the true seed. The pericarp is made up of the hard shell (endocarp), oil bearing tissues (mesocarp), and the skin (exocarp).
  • What is palm oil mill effluent?
  • Palm oil mill effluent with high oil content collected in a pond in NIFOR. The aim of commercial cultivation of the oil palm and ensuring proper husbandry and management is to convey 100% of the fruits produced by the palms to the extraction plant and process these fruits into premium palm oil and the co-product, palm kernel.
  • Does palm oil milling improve OER?
  • Based on the world production of palm oil in 2018, approximately 3 million tonnes of additional palm oil can be produced globally with a 1% increase in OER. In this paper, the current status of the palm oil milling process and the factors affecting the OER are discussed. Subsequently, the methods to improve the OER are reviewed.