Palm oil waste potentials – by residues type
From study literature, there are 5 types of biomass produced by the palm oil industry: empty fruit bunches (EFB), mesocarp fiber, kernel shells, fronds and trunks. EFB, mesocarp fiber and kernel shells are discarded at palm oil mills, while frond and trunks are discarded at the plantations.
In general, oil is made from about 10% of the whole palm oil trees while the other 90% will be used as biomass. Fresh fruit bunch or FFB contains only 27% palm oil, while the rest are 19-21% fiber, 10-11% palm kernel, 10-11% shell and 30% EFB left as biomass source. Since the growth of palm oil consumption in Indonesia is increasing, the potency of palm oil residue as renewable energy in Indonesia is also growing. As illustration, domestic demand of palm oil in Indonesia in 2011 remains solid with 6.7mn tones. These results with many residues from palm oil waste: 19.5mn tones of EFB, 12mn tones of mesocarp fibre, and 5.9mn tones of palm kernel shells. All those amount of palm oil biomasses can be transformed into three types of biomass energies; bio-products, bio-fuels, and bio-power.