Study on The Effect of Recycling Residual Oils from PPF and EFB on The Physicochemical Properties of Crude Palm Oil

(Officer In-charge: Hasliyanti Alias)

 

Mesocarp palm pressed-fibre is freely available in all palm oil mills. Palm oil mill generates massive amounts of this fibre every year. Currently, the fibre is burnt as a fuel to generate power to the mills. But, there are about 5-8% oil (on a dry weight basis) that still remains in the pressed-fibre. The amount of oil entrapped in this fibre depends on the efficiency of milling process especially during the sterilisation stages, the conditioning of the sterilized fruits, and also the pressure exerted on the press cake fibre during pressing. The residual fibre oil currently recovered using solvent extraction in the mills is used in animal feed industry and as a raw material for biodiesel plant.

 

As palm oil is well-known for its versatility in both edible and non-edible application, great efforts are currently undertaken to study the utilization prospects of the by-products generated from the palm oil milling process. The utalisation of palm pressed fibre as well as the residual fibre oil recovered from the mesocrap pressed-fibre will be able to change the by-products into valuable products.  These by-product applications require extensive studies on the physic-chemical properties of the by-products in order to ensure their suitability as a raw material for various final products.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Objective:

• To identify the suitability of recycling residual oils from palm mesocarp pressed-fibre (PPF and empty fruit bunch fibre (EFB) into crude palm oil to meet the production oil quality.

 

• To characterize the physicochemical properties of the residual oils and mixture of residual oils with crude palm oil (CPO)

 

• To study the effects of mixing residual oil and CPO on the oil stability

 

• To study the effects of recycling residual oils on refining processes.