Exploring Sustainable and Optimized
Palm Oil Production Process Through Technology
Summary
Palm oil is one of the world's single most breakthrough and essential modern consumption. From edibles & cosmetics to oleochemical & biofuel, palm oil revolutionized industry as the most efficient edible oil that takes less land and carbon footprint than other equivalent alternatives. As the world demands grow, scientists predict that we need 12 million hectare more of palm oil plantations. The demand naturally leads to more production and palm oil plantations.
On the other hand, palm oil plantations are not without their challenges, mostly on the environment. From the process of extraction to how we treat its waste, we are at the end of the line where sustainable palm oil production is a must. As National Geographic pointed out, boycotting palm oil would be unwise. The key is not to banish palm oil, but to make a significant effort in sustainable production of palm oil. This article describes how palm oil plantation can be optimized further to a more sustainable end.
What is Palm Oil
Palm oil is a natural resource harvested from the West African oil palm. Easy to grow in the tropics and difficult soil, we have used palm oil for millenia. Boiling and pounding its fruit to extract the oil. Not only the fruit, but almost everything in the palm can be used for productivity, from seed-kernels to its leaves.
Two of its products, olein (liquid form) and stearin (solid form) are used in approximately 50% of products in the supermarkets, including food and non-food items. Consumer retail food and snacks such as cookies, pizza dough, and bread contains palm oil. Lipstick, lotion, and soap also contains palm oil. The versatility of palm oil combined with the fact that they require only one-tenth as much as other crops such as soybean or rapeseed makes them the world's most popular vegetable oil, accounting for more than third of global consumption.
Image from National Geographic magazine
Going even further, research shows that oil palm is the most efficient and cost effective biodiesel feedstock. Biodiesel is one of the most important keys in protecting the environment, having 50-81% less carbon footprint than fossil fuels.
Simply said, palm oil is a versatile and high-productivity oil harvested from palm trees.
Is Palm Oil sustainable?
When we talk about sustainability, we talk about three pillars of sustainability: People, Planet, Profit. A balance between profit, progressing people involved, as well as taking care of the environment in the process. It is not an easy task, but nevertheless not impossible.
Image from National Geographic magazine
Balancing three pillars of sustainability is not an easy task, but nevertheless not impossible.
Palm oil experiences a bad reputation through a series of negative campaigns from the opposite industries, especially in the environmental and health issues. While most of these facts have been reputed well by various research and white papers, such as the case of palm oil sustainability in the region, the general population have a minimum knowledge between palm oil and its alternatives, in terms of sustainability.
As the association of sustainable palm oil , Roundtable of Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) sets a standard for sustainable palm oil and its certification and seal of approval. Some palm oil companies murky the water and further deepen the negative image of palm oil by not adhering to the regulations set. But to throw a barrel of apples because several rotten one is unwise.
Palm oil can be sustainable, and still be profitable.
So far, palm oil production is 10x more efficient in land usage than other vegetable alternatives. This leads to less land usage, fertilizers, and pesticides. On the other hand, waste treatment and second-grade palm oil mill effluent (commonly known as POME) needs to be optimised to produce less damage to the environment. By optimizing both the production and waste management, the palm oil industry can still be profitable while also sustainable.When we talk about sustainability, we don’t mean to ignore or remove profit. We aim to improve both productivity and at the same time save the environment.
Palm Oil Extraction Process
To understand the full extent of palm oil sustainability, we need to understand how palm oil is extracted. In this chapter we will explain how palm oil extraction works, types of palm oil, and what kind of waste produced by palm oil. We’ll take a look at various methods to extract palm oil.
Palm Bunch Receiving and Transport
Palm bunch are harvested from the tree and transported to the processing site. The way palm bunch is extracted from the tree, and the damage and bruises of the bunch can affect the free fatty acid (FFA) lever variously. Oil refiners generally prefer oil with low FFA as they don’t need to face the problem of neutralization of high FFA content in palm oil.
Palm Bunch Sterilizing
Crude Palm Oil (CPO) process starts from sterilization process. Palm bunches are sterilized in pressured steam 130 celsius for around 60 minutes to soften pulp structure, fibrous materials and its content to be prepared for the digestion process.
The heat also reduces water content and destroys oil-spitting enzymes that cause fatty acids. Sterilization process produces around 10% condensate equivalent to the bunch weight, with the highest BOD level, up to 90,000 ppm. Oil losses from this process ranges around 3%.
To lessen oil loss during the extraction process, products such as BioMicroGel can be applied to various points in the extraction process.
Palm Fruit Digester
Digesting is a process where the palm oil in the fruit is released through a steam-heated cylinder with beating arms. By pounding the fruit at high temperature, the viscosity of oil is reduced and the fruits’ outer covering (exocarp) is destroyed.
Pressing (Palm Oil Extraction)
Pressing is a way to extract palm oil from the mash on the previous step. In a simple term, the extraction stage is a process of squeezing the oil out of a mixture of oil, moisture, fibre and nuts by applying mechanical pressure on the digested mash.
There are a number of different presses available, but the most common in the palm oil industry is screw press. The screw press uses high-temperature water as a diluent.
Extraction process does not produce direct liquid waste, but it does on the cleaning and washing process. Majority of the output of this process is a cake.
Common terms used in this section:
Ensuring BOD and COD levels up to the standard before discharging waste into the environment is one of the keys of sustainability to environment attributes, as pointed out in the requirements for Ecolabel certification by RSPO.
Oil Clarification
Oil clarification is intended to separate the oil from its impurities (mixture of palm oil, water, fibrous material, and non-oily solids). The clarification process, with the addition of hot water creates a separation between the heavy solids and the lighter oil. Oil will rise to the top and is decanted into the reception tank, whereas heavier oil sludge goes to the fat pit. This heavy sludge is known as Palm Oil Mill Effluent, commonly abbreviated by POME.
Rising oil can be taken easily by proper machine such as Continous Sludge Reduction Machine. This is effectively settling the sludge in bottom side while oil rise to upper side.
Palm Oil Mill Effluent (POME)
At the heart of a sustainable, palm oil extraction is its effluent optimization and efficiency.
Palm Oil Mill Effluent, commonly known as POME, is a wastewater generated from palm oil milling activities which requires effective treatment before discharge into watercourses due to its highly polluting properties. As a byproduct of the extraction process, POME consists of 3-5% of CPO. This oil can be further used as a second-grade product such as feedstock of Biodiesel manufacture, or non-edible products such as soap.
Majority of the palm oil producers have yet to have an optimized waste management system, both in solid waste and liquid waste. This optimization can lead to better profit and at the same time reduce environmental impact.
On average, palm oil extraction produces up to 60% liquid waste from their extraction capacity. These liquid waste needs to pass three process before they can be discharged back into the environment:
- Fat Pit process: Liquid waste goes through a heating process, allowing oil recovery from the liquid waste.
- Anaerobic tank digestion, 4 pond in total
- Aerobic tank digestion, 4 pond in total
Traditional processing of POME uses 14700 sqm per 126000 tons of waste. Conventional POME processing needs a lot of pond because its turnover cycle is affected by how much time it takes for it to dried up to be able to be extracted.
Some machines such as Screw Sludge Dewatering helps separate sludge and liquid waste, cutting time in waste management processing as well as output efficiency.
Optimizing Palm Oil Mill Effluent
Conventional POME processing involves several steps and ponds. The ponds act as a natural filter and treatment for the effluent, using the sun as a heating agent to promote separation between water and oil (water being absorbed to the ground, and oil floats on top). As time passes, the oil content increases at the top of the pond and processors can recover the oil as secondary-grade oil.
Because of the slow process of heating and separation of oil and water, POME was the least profitable product to process. However, technology has come a long way and become more sophisticated, allowing processors to cut POME processing process from months to a mere days. Combined with the biodegradable state of the technology, processors can achieve better results and at the same time contribute to the environment.
Various research has been done to promote sustainability production in the environment, such as biological treatment of POME that can benefit from Microalgae and ultrafiltration, allowing it to be safely discharged into the environment.
Products such as BioMicroGel are fully biodegradable (99% during 24 hours) and at the same time produce better economic effects for the processor. Oil production increase and lower fixed costs means efficient production, while significant oil loss decrease means cleaner wastewater, resulting in lower wastewater treatment cost.
If you don’t want to bother yourself that much or you don’t have the time, you can ask a Palm Oil optimisation specialist for help.
Contact us for a free consultation on how we can help you optimise your POME.
Curious how much you can save each year on POME processing?
Heads up to our POME efficiency calculator.
Land Usage and Cost Optimization
It took around 6 weeks on average to do oil recovery on conventional POME processing methods. Not only does this equate to longer time to do oil recovery, palm oil plantation must maintain the ponds by doing sludge extraction roughly per 6 months time, at the cost of $10k~.
POME WasteWater
When POME is processed, it will leave out liquid waste. The liquid waste will further need to be processed in two steps: Anaerobic fermentation, followed by aerobic fermentation in large ponds until effluent quality is suitable for discharge.
Anaerobic process is suitable for wastewater with high concentration of organic matter such as POME. Anaerobic microorganisms can degrade organic matter. Decomposition of organic and inorganic matter is carried out in absence of oxygen. Furthermore, it also generates biogas that can be used for other usage.
Similar with anaerobic, aerobic process is carried out by microorganism. But, this kind of microorganism should be supplied by oxygen. Oxygen supply is the most important part of aerobic process. Proper oxygen supply to aeration tank optimizing its process. In general, the oxygen was supplied by blower and distributing by aerator. Many kinds of aerator was available in market. Selecting the right type of aerator is a key factor to minimize the consumption of electricity and to supply oxygen demand in optimum level. Pentagon Shape Aerator is a solution that can solve the problems of oxygen supply. Its design can prevent several problems such as clogging that are the main problem for others type of aerator.
The advanced technology of Pentagon Aerator system can help supply oxygen demand in optimum level without clogging.
Standard TSS allowance in water, before said water can be flown back to the river is 300 mg/L, while standard TSS in POME water is at 18000 - 46011 mg/L.
Traditional processors and small-scale palm oil processors do not adhere to the good environmental practices, and often return liquids to surrounding environments without properly treating it. It has been observed that this can affect the surrounding environment poorly.
Modern technology such as PWI and Kintep allows processors to efficiently process the sludge using sludge dewatering machine, and improve its efficiency (less land required), and cost-saving (eliminating the costly process of excavating the pond every 4-6 months).
