Development of a Green Processing Technology for Palm Oil Industry

(Officer In-charge: Dr. Ng Mei Han)    

Description

Microwave sterilisation of palm fruits is a dry and simplified pretreatment process of palm fruits in oil palm processing. Common practice in palm oil milling ‘cooks’ a bunch of palm fruits with high pressure steam for about 60 to 90 minutes, during large amount of effluent is generated. Microwave sterilisation takes less than 10 minutes to sterilise the same bunch, provided the bunch is crushed leaving only the fruitlets. Dry condition of sterilised fruits makes it suitable for organic solvent extraction process, at which the oil could be extracted to the most. The dry process is definitely able to eliminate the usage of water hence reducing the cost of wastewater and effluent treatment

Objectives

i) To introduce a new palm oil processing approach starting from fruit collections in     the estates to extraction of oil in the mills.

ii) To find a new processing approach for the palm oil mills which comprises:

        a. Alternative sterilization (microwave technology)

        b.Solvent extraction

iii) To find the optimum parameters for microwave sterilization of oil palm fruitlets.

iv) To find optimum parameters for extraction of oil palm fruitlets from (ii) using  

      solvent extraction.

v) To compare the quality of oil in (iii) with crude palm oil.