The Oil Palm Wastes in Malaysia

Abstract

Oil palm is the most important product from Malaysia that has helped to change the scenario of it’s agriculture and economy. Lignocellulosic biomass which is produced from the oil palm industries include oil palm trunks (OPT), oil palm fronds (OPF), empty fruit bunches (EFB) and palm pressed fibres (PPF), palm shells and palm oil mill effluent palm (POME). However, the presence of these oil palm wastes has created a major disposal problem. The fundamental principles of waste management are to minimise and recycle the waste, recover the energy and finally dispose the waste. These principals apply to agroindustrial wastes such as palm oil residues as they do to municipal waste. We can simply no longer afford to dispose the residues when there is an economically useful alternative. We must first consider the current uses and disposal of mill residues in order to address the potential for recovery of energy in the palm oil industry. One of the unique aspects of Malaysian renewable energy sources is that the palm oil mill is self-sufficient in energy, using PPF, EFB and shell as fuel to generate steam in waste-fuel boilers for processing, and power-generation with steam turbines as described in Section 2.2.