Malaysia has about 3.5 million hectares of oil palm producing annually over 10 million tonnes of crude palm oil (CPO), making it the world.s leading producer of the oil. However, CPO and its economic co-products . palm kernel oil and palm kernel cake constitute only 10% of the crop, leaving the rest of the biomass to waste.
The biomass includes the oil palm trunks (OPT) and fronds (OPF), kernel shell, EFB, pressed fruit fibre (PFF) and palm oil mill effluent (POME). At present, these products are not only underutilized but frequently the causes of pollution as well (Husin et al., 1985).
The sheer volumes of these products and their environmental friendliness cry for their use in economic products. The most available is EFB with an annual production of about 3 million tonnes (dry weight) (Husin et al., 1985). EFB is the residual bunch after removal of the fruits; it constitutes 20% to 22% of the weight of the fresh fruit bunches.
On average, fresh EFB from the mill contains 30.5% lignocellulose, 2.5% oil and 67% water. The main constituents of the lignocellulose are cellulose (45%), hemicellulose (32.8%) and lignin (20.5%). Of the hemicellulose, pentosan is 27.3%. At present, EFB is mainly used as mulch, but the economics are marginal due to the high transport cost. It is seldom burnt as fuel as the shell and fruit fibre are sufficient for the oil palm mill (Ellis and Paszner, 1994; Husin et al., 1985; Muthurajah, 1981).
Recently, EFB has been investigated as a raw material for building materials, solid fuel pellets, chemical products, particleboard, fibreboard, blockboard, and pulp and paper (Kobayashi et al., 1985; Husin et al., 1985; Muthurajah, 1981; Gabriele, 1995). Although fibreboard can be produced from any lignocellulosic material (Lathrop and Naffziger, 1949), very little is known about using EFB for it.
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