Assessment of oil palm waste treatment technology

Oil palm tree is the primary producer of the world cooking oil.The total crude palm oil (CPO) production contributes around 26.5 per cent (25 Million Tons per year) of the total world market. It is predicted that palm oil will share about 27.6 per cent of total world cooking oil consumption between 2008 and 2012. In addition to oil as a main product, a palm oil plant also produces the wastes, both solid and liquid wastes. These are empty palm fruit bunches, shells, fibers, sludge, and solid wastes from the kernel processes. The composition of the palm fruit empty bunch (EB),shell, fiber and sludge decanter is about 4, 11, 6 and 1 per cent dry weight of the total fresh fruit, respectively. These wastes will pollute the environment if their treatment technologies are not suitably applied and chosen. The common current treatment technology for the solid waste of the palm oil industry in Indonesia is incineration and field disposal. These treatment technologies could danger the environment if they are not designed, constructed, and operated properly based on the principle of cleaner technology. Research and development on several treatment technologies of palm oil wastes have been done. This paper will introduce the variety of technologies that could be used to treat different types of wastes of the palm oil industry at environmentally safe, technically acceptable and economically feasible.