| dc.description.abstract | The main product of oil palm plantations is oil palm fresh fruit bunches. However, there
are loose oil palm fruits detached from the ripe fresh fruit bunch or found during the
cutting process at harvest. Biodiesel can be obtained by processing crude palm oil (CPO)
through a trans-esterification process; however, CPO is an important source of food,
especially for cooking oil. Biodiesel production as a source of new renewable energy
increases could threaten the food security programs. The oil palm loose fruits as industrial
waste were investigated for renewable energy sources to overcome the conflict between
the renewable energy program and food security. This research found that oil palm loose
fruits consisted of about 55% of mesocarp (flesh of fruit) and around 45% of the seed.
Increasing delays in the processing of oil palm loose fruits led to a decrease in the oil, and
a processing delay of 12 days resulted in a significant reduction in extract yield. Increasing
processing delay reduced the iodine value, and the study showed that oil palm loose fruits
after 12 days have a high level of oil saturation and free fatty acid of CPO was 37%.
Esterification followed by transesterification was conducted to synthesize biodiesel. The
biodiesel was produced by transesterification, resulting in a yield of 14.5% and free fatty
acid of 1.3%, while fatty acid methyl ester was achieved at 70.24%. Hence, we could
convert oil palm loose fruits into biodiesel as a strategy to meet the renewable energy
requirement produced from non-food crops. | en_US |
