Palm oil mills target zero emission

Palm oil milling is far from benign, but the industry is frantically conducting research to realise low-emission technologies. The zero-discharge plant is one such bold concept.

THE extraction of palm oil involves a number of steps: fruit bunch sterilisation, stripping, digestion, pressing, classification, purification, and vacuum drying. When all these step are added together, a significant amount of water is needed for a palm oil mill’s operations. On average, about 1.5cu.m of water is needed to process one tonne of fresh fruit bunch, and half of this liquid ends up as palm oil mill effluent (POME).