In this study, residual oil from oil palm decanter cake (OPDC) was recovered using n-hexane through Soxhlet extraction process. The residual oil recovered was analysed for its physical and chemical properties. The oil content, moisture, Free Fatty Acid (FFA), Peroxide Value (PV), Iodine Value (IV), Deterioration of Bleachability Index (DOBI) and carotene were measured as 15.43±0.45% (dry), 70.96±0.14%, 6.42±0.11%, 4.37±0.04 meq/kg, 53.28±0.02 g/100 g, 1.93±0.03 and 833.20±39 ppm respectively. The results showed that its fatty acid composition, carotene and IV were comparable with the Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB) standard for crude palm oil (CPO), whilst the properties of the other value had slightly exceeded due to oxidation during the extraction process.
This study proposes a new method to evaluate the performance of palm oil extraction based on Predictive Scoring Index methodology. The variables, Oil Extraction Rate (OER) and Oil Loss (OL), were identified as important to develop a new extraction index based on three different steriliser systems. There were six performance categories: Excellent, Very Good, Good, Average, Poor and Very Poor. Based on 75 selected palm oil mills data from 2009-2013, Continuous Sterilizer (CS) system and Conventional Sterilizer (CV) system recorded 2.7% and 1.3% respectively under the Excellent category. The Compact Modular Concept (CMC) system only recorded ‘Very Good’ (20%) and ‘Good’ (13.3%). This study showed that EPI could be used to monitor palm oil extraction performance to ensure maximum oil extraction and minimum losses.
Palm Oil Mill Effluent (POME) is the largest contributor of biomass from
the palm oil milling industry. Conventional method of POME treatment
using ponding system should be improved because of huge land resource
requirement. In this study, microbubbles technology was applied to
understand the recovery rate of residual oil from POME at different
operating temperatures. Temperature for POME was set at 27 oC, 30 oC and
50 oC to determine the microbubble size distributions and characteristics at
different POME temperature. At each temperature, the size of microbubbles
was measured based on six size range; 50 μm. The results showed that at different
temperatures, the microbubbles size distribution varies and the smallest
group of microbubbles (
Palm Oil Fuel Ash (POFA) is a biomass produced from palm oil industries. POFA is known to contain
a high amount of silica and has been proven by XRF spectroscopy, in which the silicon dioxide content
is 72.63%. In this study, silica was synthesised from POFA. To extract the silica, POFA was fused
with alkaline agent (Na2CO3) before mixing with Cethyltrimetyl Ammonium Bromide (CTAB) and
Sulphuric Acid (H2SO4). Sodium silicate solution from the fusion was used as silica precursor replacing
conventionally used silica source, Tetraethoxilane (TEOS). XRD pattern showed that raw POFA
dominantly consists of silica. Meanwhile, FTIR analysis of the synthesised silica exhibited spectra
bands at 3393 cm-1, 1635 cm-1, 1028 cm-1 and 787 cm-1 that corresponded to the functional groups of
Si-O and O-H. Thus, it could be concluded that silica was successfully extracted from POFA by the
alkaline fusion method.