MARKET DEVELOPMENT – PALM OIL ENGINEERING BULLETIN

Technological improvements in palm oil milling/refinery: the monetary incentive

mpob_admin — Sun, 29 Mar 2020 17:13:50 +0000

Malaysia is the home of modern palm oil industry – where the in- dustry originated. The size of the industry is increasing at a rapid pace in countries with appropriate climatic condi- tions. For example, Uganda is expected to produce 140 000 t of crude palm oil and 14 000 t of palm kernel oil per year. South America, Brazil, Ecuador and Colombia are increasing oil palm plantation acreage [Oil &amp, Fats International, Vol. 26 No. 4 (May 2010)]. This leads to tremendous opportuni- ties and a large market for technical innova- tions and strong monetary returns on cost of innovation. Malaysia has a head start in that it is a reputable brand name in this in- dustry, and this should be taken advantage of.

Challenges facing the palm oil industry

mpob_admin — Sun, 29 Mar 2020 17:13:58 +0000

It has been said many times that there will hardly be any drastic change in palm oil milling technology if mills continue to receive and process the FFB in its present form. The experience of past 50 years or so can testify this. However, it is justified to put on record here that there were many incremental improvement and changes in various unit operations, but these were hardly revolutionary in nature. The palm oil mills still rely on the massive heavy and huge steel vessels like sterilizers, cages and threshers to handle the fresh fruit bunch (FFB). Large quantities of steam and water are required to sterilize the FFB, either in full set or crushed form, and to dilute the crude oil slurry for oil recovery in the clarification process. The recent trend to reduce the water usage in the process has not been very encouraging. Most of the water used in the milling process, except the steam blowoff and exhaust-steam, ended up as palm oil mill effluent (POME) which has to be treated to comply with the Department of Environment (DOE) discharge standards.

Glimpses of milling visions

mpob_admin — Sun, 29 Mar 2020 17:14:05 +0000

It will be interesting to visualize what is in store for the palm oil industry and the milling technology in the year, say 2060, about 50 years from now. The first question is whether the palms will be still stretching throughout our entire landscape virtually displacing any other crop as it is now. The demand for edible oil will certainly rise and as the land bank remains static, the only change we can forecast is increased yield per hectare by using high technology but even here there must be limits on yield. Might as well leave this to the biologist and biotechnologists as this is not meant for the engineers.