Case study: Preliminary assessment of integrated palm biomass biorefinery for bioethanol production utilizing non-food sugars from oil palm frond petiole

Abstract

In this case study, a preliminary assessment on the bioethanol production from oil palm frond (OPF) petiole sugars within an integrated palm biomass biorefinery was carried out. Based on the case study of 4 neighbouring palm oil mills, approximately 55,600 t/y of fermentable sugars could be obtained from OPF petiole. The integrated biorefinery will be located at one of the 4 mills. The mill has potential excess energy comprising 3.64 GWh/y of electricity and 177,000 t/y of steam which are sufficient to run the biorefinery. With 33.9 million litres/y of bioethanol production, the specific production cost of bioethanol

Life Cycle Assessment for Bioethanol Production from Oil Palm Frond Juice in an Oil Palm Based Biorefinery

“…The proposed model was developed based on a study by Abdullah et al [9]. Four nearby palm oil mills were selected for the construction of the model with one of the mills integrated with a biorefinery for bioethanol production.…”

“…Figure 1 depicts the complete material balance for the extraction of fermentable sugars from OPF petiole juice and subsequent bioethanol production at the biorefinery OPF petiole sugars were initially produced through pressing and saccharification processes at the individual mill, whereby all the energy required for this process was obtained from the extra energy supplied by the co-generation system. Therefore, the selection of the palm oil mill to set up the biorefinery was determined by the adequacy of excess energy available at the mill to support the bioethanol production [9]. Nonetheless, in the present study, several modifications were done to improve its environmental performance.…”

“…It was expected that 56 million tonnes/year of OPF would be produced in Malaysia alone during replanting by 2020 [8]. Due to its high carbohydrates and nourishing constituents, OPF could serve as a substrate for the production of biofuels, bio-based chemicals, biofertilizer, and animal feed [9][10][11][12]. Furthermore, OPF petiole juice consists of high glucose content and can simply be extracted by conventional sugarcane pressing method [13][14][15].…”

“…In the previous study, the incorporation of a biorefinery with an existing palm oil mill was demonstrated promising for bioethanol production upscaling due to the availability of surplus fuel to accommodate the biorefinery [9]. Recognizing that the environmental criteria must also be considered in the selection of the biofuel production process [4], a life cycle assessment (LCA) was performed in the present study with slight modifications on the previous model [9]. LCA is the common method in assessing the environmental performance of a process.…”

Multi-step pretreatment as an eco-efficient pretreatment method for the production of cellulose nanofiber from oil palm empty fruit bunch

“…Nevertheless, due to the involvement of three unit operations for multistep pretreatment, the method is also lacking in term of energy requirement, similar to soda pulping. However, for CNF production from oil palm biomass, energy requirement may not be an issue since the palm oil mills are currently generating excess energy in the form of high pressure steam (Abdullah et al, 2016). It is hence necessary to locate the CNF processing facilities nearby the palm oil mill so that this excess steam can be tapped and utilized for the process.…”