Climate change, food security, and energy crisis are becoming more intense in our world. Oil palm can be utilized in both the food and biofuel industries. To respond to the crisis, it is necessary to develop palm oil products besides vegetable oil and biodiesel. This article focuses on the development of strategies to research oil palm throughout the supply chain in Thailand. The SWOT factors (the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) are recognized via interviews with stakeholders. These stakeholders are feedstock producers, crude palm oil (CPO) producers, government agencies, biodiesel producers, palm oil refinery producers, and researchers. The results obtained from the data collection were analyzed and led to the formulation of strategies for future research on oil palm by the TOWS matrix. According to this analysis, future palm oil research framework strategies should consist of four categories: (1) oil palm management policy, developing regulation and economic instruments of various forms to systematically manage the oil palm industry, and applying big data and smart innovation to analyze market behavior; (2) oil palm breeding and production technologies, developing smart innovation in line with farmers’ lifestyles, and supporting research on oil content analysis and harvesting technology; (3) oil palm biomass conversion technologies, assessing environmental impacts through life cycle technology, evaluating the potential reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, and increasing the consumption rate of palm biomass; and (4) palm-based oleochemical products, developing oleochemical technology at the industrial level, expanding the potential capacity of producing oleochemical derivative products, and increasing the consumption rate and value added of CPO. All four frameworks were detailed and revised in line with the information obtained from seminars, comments, and interviews to meet the needs of all stakeholders. This framework will help drive the Bio-Circular-Green economy model in the future.

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Transition Pathway Palm Oil Research Framework Toward a Bio-Circular-Green Economy Model Using SWOT Analysis: A Case Study of Thailand

Biomethane is a sustainable energy that is produced from an organic and renewable resource. As the second-largest oil palm producer in the world, palm oil mill effluent (POME) is the primary source of biomethane generation in Malaysia. POME is the by-product of palm oil extraction and is extensively employed as a feedstock for the production of biomethane. Malaysia has an equatorial environment with humid and hot weather; this climate is conducive to the cultivation of numerous agricultural crops. A considerable number of agricultural wastes and residues are produced by agricultural crops, however, only 27% of them are used as fuel or to create useable products. Several publications have been published on the production of biomethane from POME; nevertheless, additional research is required on the use of other bioresources and technologies for biomethane production in Malaysia. In addition, there is a lack of comprehensive information on the future development of biomethane production in Malaysia; thus, to fill this gap, this review paper focuses on the challenges and future of Malaysia, which puts an emphasis on POME and also includes other alternative options of bioresources that can be the future feedstock for biomethane production in Malaysia. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first paper to provide a comprehensive overview of the biogas trend in Malaysia in terms of challenges and current biomethane development, as well as detailed information on a number of leading companies that are currently active in Malaysia biogas industry.

https://downloads.hindawi.com/journals/ijce/2022/2278211.pdf

Methane Biogas Production in Malaysia: Challenge and Future Plan

Alkyl polyglycosides enhanced the dark fermentation of excess sludge and plant waste to produce hydrogen: performance and mechanism

The ever-increasing organic waste generation in Malaysia is a significant contributor to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. However, organic wastes can be utilized to produce biogas by anaerobic digestion, which is a promising option for both energy and material recovery from organic wastes with high moisture content. Therefore, this study was formulated to investigate the feasibility of anaerobic co-digestion of three types of organic wastes generated in significantly huge quantities in Malaysia, namely palm oil mill effluent (POME), food waste (FW), and sewage sludge (SWS). The biomethane potential (BMP) test was used to evaluate the biomethane potential from these organic wastes under mesophilic conditions to establish a stable and balanced microbial community, which may lack in mono-digestion, to improve biogas production. Comparative performance was made at different food to microorganism (F/M) ratios to investigate methane production in three groups of assays, namely A, B, and C. In groups A and B, the effect of F/M ratio variation on methane production was investigated, while in group C, the effect of varying the co-substrate mixture on methane yield was examined. The findings showed that the highest methane yields achieved for mono-digestion of POME and SWS in group A were 164.44 mL-CH4/g-CODadded and 65.34 mL-CH4/g-CODadded, respectively, at an F/M ratio of 0.8 and 197.90 mL-CH4/g-CODadded for FW in group B at an F/M ratio of 0.5. In addition, the highest methane yield achieved from the anaerobic co-digestion was at 151.47 mL-CH4/g-CODadded from the co-digestion of the POME and SWS (50:50) at an F/M ratio of 1.7 in group A. Both AD and AcoD were tested to fit into two kinetic models: the modified Gompertz and the transfer function models. The results showed that the modified Gompertz model had a better fit and was more adjusted to the experimental results for both AD and AcoD. The importance of this research lies in the economics of anaerobically co-digesting these abundance feedstocks and the variations in their characteristics which were found to increase their methane yield and process efficiency in anaerobic co-digestion.

Mohamed Abdulrahman Al-samet

Papers

Evaluating the biomethane potential from the anaerobic co-digestion of palm oil mill effluent, food waste, and sewage sludge in Malaysia.