Oil palm: the rich mine for pharma, food, feed and fuel industries

Abstract

The rapid increase of palm oil (PO) production in the last 20 years has made it the most important oil in the world. By year 2007, the annual global production of PO reached 40 million metric tons. Currently, Malaysia accounts for almost 50% of world palm oil production. As most of natural oils, PO has only a limited application in their original form, as a consequence of its complex chemical composition. PO contains free fatty acids, sterols, tocopherols, hydrocarbons, pigments, vitamins and many other components. Therefore, PO has wide applications for the production of high value products for pharmaceutical, food and chemical industries. Moreover, based on its lower price compared to other plant oils, PO is considered as one of the main raw materials for biodiesel production. These all together makes PO the most widely fractionated oil. The Palm Oil Production Chain (POPC) is integrated process with several segments started from good cultivation practice to obtain fruit of high oil content through well integrated refinery process for maximal separation and utilization of each oil fraction and ended by the better use of different processes by-products. Beside PO, the byproducts obtained from oil palm residues after oil extractions, which are about 5 times in weight more than crude oil, are very rich carbohydrate source for many agricultural and industrial applications. In the present work, this integrated approach in oil palm industries will be represented in more details as complete R&D platform for agrobased industries.