Development of palm oil sludge into commercial by-product in Sarawak

Syed Muhammad Syafie, Bin Wan Saiful Bahari (2017) Development of palm oil sludge into commercial by-product in Sarawak. [Final Year Project Report] (Unpublished)

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Abstract

Globally, the demand for palm oil is increasing annually, to meet these requirement, the palm oil production in Malaysia is expected to rise especially in Sarawak in order to compensate the needs. Subsequently, the biomass waste from the processing of palm oil is also expected to increase in which the waste ranging from fronds, trunks, empty fruit bunch, shell and fibre. Generally, the effluent wastes produced from the purification of crude palm oil and from various processes in the palm oil mill is then channelled to the water treatment plant. At the water treatment plant, both palm oil mill sludge (POMS) and palm oil mill effluent (POME) is mix together. As the palm oil production increased, so as the POMS. Unfortunately, the POM complication for the palm oil mill as well as the environments. It is usually dumped at the plantation area or at landfill. Therefore, a study with an aim to convert the POMS from palm oil industry in Sarawak into sustainable commercial by-product especially fertiliser in which help in disposing this waste. The study is conducted in the form of literature review, POMS production estimation, questionnaire survey study, conceptual study and optimization of POMS as a fertilizer, fabrication of densified fertilizer and experimental testing on densified fertilizer. From this study, it is found that POMS have the potential to be utilized as fertilizer once mixed with other organic material such as chicken poo, cow dung and compost. The best mixture for organic fertilizer are between POMS and compost as it requires the lowest amount of total additional sources which are 5.34 kg (MPOB F1) and 7.04 kg (XTRA K). Meanwhile, POMS can also be utilized as a semi-organic fertilizer. The best mixture for semi-organic fertilizer are POMS, compost and inorganic material (N, P, and K) because it produced the lightest fertilizer among the other mixture which are 148.99 kg (MPOB F1) and 149.34 kg (XTRA K). Experimental testing with the fertilizer are done including density, amount of fines, moisture content and water absorption. Most briquetted fertilizer especially semi-organic fertilizer shows positive results. Thus, utilization of POMS into fertilizer proved economical and environmentally viable.

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