Development of optimisation model based on genetic algorithms for palm oil refining industry

Abstract

In palm oil refining industry, the major concern is on the end quality of refined oil and one of the factors affecting this quality is the amount of raw chemicals used during refining process. In current practice, the amount of chemicals used are fixed within a certain range. There is no system that can estimate the right amount of chemicals to be added in accordance to the required quality of the refined palm oil. The optimisation model of palm oil refining is developed. The process of optimisation of palm oil refining industry involves an objective function that consist of palm oil refining production raw chemicals cost and its dosage. For this type of problem, Genetic Algorithms (GAs) optimisation is demonstrated to be an effective tool to solve it. In this paper, optimisation model development based on GAs is presented to improve the industrial production of refined palm oil. The model must optimise an objective function consists of dosage of bleaching earth and citric acid subjected to the constraint of the process which is the quality of the refined oil. The optimum value of bleaching earth and citric acid dosage given by the model are 0.9 and 0.03. This model is crucial in maintaining the good quality of the refined palm oil as well as increasing the process profitability.