Palm oil is an important and versatile vegetable oil which is used as a raw material for both food and non-food industries. It is an economic life wire of some countries like Malaysia, even though it was once so for Nigeria when agriculture was the mainstay of her economy.
Diving into the oil palm producing business is not and can never be seen as a failed or failure prone adventure, especially when the best expertise is applied, backed up with capital to finance the early stages of the production processes. Fresh fruit bunches full and filled with red coated kernel grow on the palm tree and are harvested, transported to a palm oil mill for processing. The mill process extracts the palm oil from the flesh of each individual piece of fruit contained on the bunch.
The palm kernel, the nut found in the central chore of each piece of fruit, is extracted and sent to a palm kernel crushing mill. The oil is extracted from the kernel. The pulp left over from this process is pressed together, forming palm kernel cake or expeller.
These processes extract three major palm products: crude palm oil, crude palm kernel oil and palm kernel expeller, which all in turn produce some co-products and by-products.
Land application of agricultural by-products is considered the more environmentally friendly solution for using the nutrients in the by-products rather than by diverting these materials to landfills and water ways. Product specific by-products from the palm oil mill are characterized by its high proportion of organic materials. These range from solid products (biomass) such as EFP, PPF and shells composed mainly of lignin, cellulose, hemicelluloses and other carbonaceous material. Formerly, shells and PPF were used mainly as fuel for the boiler to generate steam and electricity for running the palm oil mill. EFBs were burnt in incinerators for bunch ash or used for mulching in oil palm estates. Currently however, biomass from the palm oil industry has wide applications in the production of fibre and particle boards, charcoal briquettesand various cellulose materials.
PPFhave an oil content of 5-7%.Oil extractedfrom PPF is very high in carotene (3500-5000 ppm), tocols (2000-3000 ppm), sterols (4000-5000 ppm), phospholipids (6000 ppm), phenolics (1000-2000 ppm) and squalene (1000- 1800 ppm) [7-9]. Research by scientists showed that a single-step supercritical fluid extraction can be effectively used to recover residual oil from PPF. Separation techniques are then used to isolate valuable phytochemicals from the oil. About 0.1- 0.2 % of phenolics can also be extracted from PPF using a combination of supercritical fluid extraction andseparationtechniques.
Besides these solid by-products, palm oil mills also produce considerable amounts of aqueous waste. In the past, fine solids separated from aqueous waste were used as animal feed or fertilisers. Previously considered as low value, high volume aqueous by-products, palm oil mill effluent (POME) is now receiving attention as a source material for phenolic antioxidants. This aqueous waste has been shown to contain bioactive compounds such as phenolics antioxidants. In recent years, research on palm phenolics has intensified in the light of the growing evidence of the health benefits of phenolic antioxidants.
One of the most exciting technologies by Bragav Nigeria Ltd is hoping to patent locally is a patented process for the extraction of water-soluble antioxidants such as phenolic antioxidants from palm oil mill aqueous byproducts. Presently, a 25%- 30% concentrate with potent antioxidant properties has been prepared and tested under IP protection. Tests have shown that the palm phenolics possess free radical scavenging activity similar to that of tea extracts. The high value palm extracts have applications in nutraceutical, pharmaceutical and cosmeceutical industries. Additionally, the abundance of aqueous by-products from the palm oil industry ensures a reliable, constant and natural source of supply for these industries. Utilization of by-products from palm oil mills andrefineries.
