Availability and cost analysis of OPF biomass for succinic acid production
In order to evaluate the potential of OPF as feedstock in biochemical industries, the availability of its carbon source should be quantified. The production of OPF in Malaysia is approximately 83 MMT [13]. Therefore, global availability of OPF is estimated to be 250 MMT per annum, estimating from the ratio of Malaysia oil palm cultivation land (4.49 million hectares) reported by MPOC [14], to world oil palm cultivation land (13.46 million hectares) reported by Sime Darby Plantation [15] as was described in the introduction part. Considering the composition of structural carbohydrate in dry weight basis as 57.6% (from Table 1) and the moisture content of raw OPF as much as 77%, global generation of OPF can accommodate up to 34.6 MMT of structural carbohydrate and 2 MMT of readily fermentable sugars in the form of OPF juice. This large and cheap carbohydrate can be a reliable source of carbon in biochemical industries. Fig. 8 is the summary of the potential amount of carbohydrate that could be acquired from the OPF.