Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
11.2.1.6
Palm Oil Mill Effluent Conversion to Value Added Products
The POME full of carbohydrate, nitrogenous, protein, lipids and mineral nutrients
(Habib et al.
1997
) is waste as well as could be used by various industries as raw
material. To convert POME in to a value added product, some technologies are de-
veloped including carotenoid for A and E vitamins production (Wahid et al.
2004
),
fertilizer (Basiron and Weng
2004
), citric acid (Alam et al.
2008
) and bio-diesel
(Gutiérrez et al.
2009
). These techniques solves environmental problem and also
give value added products.
Through composting difficult organic deposits of animal and plant origin could
be changed into manure (Singh et al.
2010
) through the help of microorganisms.
Such practice stabilizes various agro-industrial wastes as well as sludge (Abd-Rah-
man et al.
2003
). The EFB produced in palm oil mill have widely been utilized for
the production of organic fertilizer and this practice also lessen EFB volume up
to 50 % (Chavalparit et al.
2006
). In a study, Baharuddin et al. (
2009
) noted some
physical and chemical variations while co-composting EFB with treated POME.
Preliminary increase in heat was noted up to 3rd day of treatment, after that tem-
perature remained between 50 and 62 ° during composting process. There was not
too much difference in wetness from the preliminary level of 65-75 % to about 60 %
at the termination of the study. The pH ranged between 7.8 and 8.0. Declined ratio
of 45:12 from 45:12 of C:N was documented following 60 days of composting.
The macro- and micro-nutrients content were observed in substantial quantities in
the final product. Therefore, it was concluded that the consumption of EFB with
POME for composting process can produce pleasing worth compost which should
be incorporated to oil palm plantations as bio-fertilizer as well as soil amendment.
11.2.1.7
Oil Palm Empty Fruit Bunch
The solid wastes generated by palm oil industries can be utilized effectively for pro-
ducing manure and value added products (Kavitha et al.
2013
). Malaysian oil palm
plantation is just on 1.97 % (5.0 million ha) of the total 253.9 million ha planted
with oilseed crops globally (Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB)
2012
). Each year
about 0.09 billion t of oil palm biomass (trunks, shells, fronds, EFB) is collected
from this EFB share is around 9 % (Bari et al.
2010
). These are the left over residues
after the fruit bunches are pressed and oil extracted at oil mills (Ma et al.
1993
;
Kamarudin et al.
1997
).
The EFB is the main solid waste from palm oil extraction. Together with other
solid waste, such as the mesocarp fibres (from pressed fruits) and kernel shells
(from fruit kernels), they are usually used as boiler fuels for the steam turbines to
produce steam for sterilization of fruit and for generation of electricity. The EFB,
as a lignocellulosic rich crop residue is suitable for many kinds of applications. The
EFB can be converted to bio-plastic, pulp, source of enzymes, hydrogen and animal
feed (Shuit et al.
2009
). The EFB has been reported to be re-used in the industry
to produce bio-oil, biodiesel, chemical compounds, and microorganisms (Sumathi
