Optimal design of integrated palm oil complex with palm oil mill effluent elimination strategy

Abstract

Palm oil mill effluent (POME) is one of the biggest pollution sources due to its eutrophying nature and methane emitting treatment technology. Although biogas capture and utilisation have been widely encouraged to achieve greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation in palm oil mills (POM), most Malaysian POMs still find it economically infeasible to invest in proper biogas facilities. Hence, POME elimination should be considered as one of the waste management options in synthesising palm oil processing pathway for profit enhancement and GHG mitigation. One of the solutions to achieve sustainability in palm oil industry is to integrate POM and palm oil refinery (POR) in terms of waste management, energy and resource. Therefore, it is desired to design an optimally integrated palm oil based-complex (POBC) which considers POME evaporation approach. The main objective of this study is to develop a model to aid POBC planning via synthesis of an integrated resource and utility network considering POME elimination with maximum profit. Based on the case study, maximum USD 36.65 x 106 is obtained for the optimal POBC design with POME elimination pathway selected. The optimum production rate for Refined, Bleached, Deodorised Palm Olein (RBDPOL) is 10.309 t/h which is boosted compared to the baseline study. 61 % less water demand is also achieved. The research output, the developed model and optimal network shall provide input to POM owners on optimal POME management and determine the economic feasibility of proposed POBC in Malaysia.