Search Results (14)

Recovering oil and water from palm oil mill effluent reduces environmental pollution and promotes sustainable practices. An effective method to achieve this is ultrafiltration (UF), which uses semi-permeable membranes to separate oil, solids, and other contaminants from wastewater under pressure. To assess the most effective recovery method, an experimental comparison was conducted between PVDF and α-Al₂O₃ UF membranes at constant permeate of 20–50 LMH for PVDF and 20–70 LMH for α-Al₂O₃ membranes. Both membranes achieved 99.8% chemical oxygen demand (COD) rejection, with oil concentration factor (F_o) of 186.8% and 253.0%, and water recovery (R_w) of 46.6% and 60.5%, respectively. The permeate water quality was superior to the Malaysian discharge standards, and the fat, oil, and grease (FOG) content was suitable for phase separation processes. The optimal permeate fluxes, with stable transmembrane pressures (TMP), were observed at 40 LMH (PVDF) and 60 LMH (α-Al₂O₃). Total resistance (R_t) values were 1.30 × 10¹² m⁻¹ (PVDF) and 1.59 × 10¹² m⁻¹ (α-Al₂O₃). The ratio of irreversible to total resistances (R_ir/R_t) was 0.02 (PVDF) and 0.06 (α-Al₂O₃), indicating minimal irreversible fouling. Overall, the α-Al₂O₃ membrane demonstrated superior performance in oil and water recovery with more stable operation compared to the PVDF membrane. UF membrane technology emerges as an efficient technique for recovering oil and water compared to conventional methods. Full article

Lactic acid is a versatile chemical with a wide range of industrial applications, including food additives as well as the production of biodegradable plastics, pharmaceuticals and cosmetics. LA can be produced through carbohydrate fermentation using various microorganisms, including lactic acid bacteria (LAB). However, the high production cost of commercial fermentation media for lactic acid raises concerns among researchers. Consequently, there is a demand for research to develop new, more affordable, and sustainable fermentation media. Utilizing underutilized agro-industrial wastes from Malaysia, particularly in the coconut, oil palm, rice, and sugarcane processing industries, offers several advantages. These include biomass reuse, cost-effective production of valuable chemicals, and agricultural waste reduction. This review discusses the potential of underutilized Malaysian agro-industrial waste from the coconut, oil palm, rice and sugarcane processing industries as sustainable carbon sources for LA production. The topics covered encompass the chemical and nutritional composition of the wastes, their potential for lactic acid fermentation with specific microorganisms, factors influencing lactic acid production, and potential applications. Additionally, this review also highlights the challenges and opportunities associated with reutilizing agricultural waste for lactic acid production. Full article

Good agricultural practice (GAP) helps increase productivity by producing fresh fruit bunches (FFBs), and selling FFBs will increase Independent Smallholders’ (ISH) income. However, although GAP promotes increased productivity, the effectiveness of GAP in delivering the well-being of the ISH in oil palm production areas remains to be determined. To that end, this study (i) measures the smallholder’s well-being index, (ii) compares the well-being index by states in Malaysia, and (iii) maps the relationship between GAP implementation, productivity, and well-being. The study selected respondents using purposive sampling (PS). PS identifies and selects individuals with Malaysian Sustainable Palm Oil (MSPO) certification and knowledge and experience of GAP. As a result, the research interviewed 564 ISHs with MSPO certification from 162 Sustainable Palm Oil Clusters (SPOC). The study used Principal Components Analysis (PCA) and the Structural Equation Model (SEM) framework to achieve the objectives. The study found that the average ISH well-being index was 0.62, and ISHs in Sabah had the highest well-being, with 0.73 compared to other states. The study also found that GAP influences productivity and is positively and significantly related to well-being. Therefore, it indicates to ISHs and the government the importance of GAP implementation to increase ISHs’ productivity and well-being. Full article

Oil palm smallholder farmers are among the key players and are mostly affected by social challenges to the sustainability of the oil palm sector in Malaysia. Previous literature reviews showed a lack of social studies compared to studies of the economy and environment regarding the sustainability of the oil palm industry. Therefore, a systematic literature review focused on the context of social issues and challenges reported by Malaysian oil palm smallholder farmers is presented. The PRISMA standard is applied as the foundation for the systematic literature review writing procedure. A total of 12 papers were chosen out of 340 from Web of Science, Scopus, and Google Scholar. They covered three themes, including (i) attitudes, (ii) education, and (iii) the welfare of oil palm smallholder farmers. This systematic literature review has revealed that the social issues and challenges are closely related to the respondents’ demographics, such as the study location, the level of education, and the size of the plantations managed by smallholder farmers. This paper provides an up-to-date review of the social issues and challenges that oil palm smallholder farmers in Malaysia have encountered, as well as insights into future research on critical societal issues and challenges that demand attention and efforts towards improvement. Full article

While timber harvesting has plateaued, repeat-logging and conversion into plantations (especially oil palm) are still active in the tropics. The associated hydrological impacts especially pertaining to enhanced runoff, flood, and erosion have been well-studied, but little attention has been given to water resource availability in the humid tropics. In the light of the increasing climate extremes, this paper compared baseflow values and baseflow recession constants (K) between headwater catchments of five differing land-uses in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo, namely primary forest (PF), old growth/virgin jungle reserve (VJR), twice-logged forest with 22 years regeneration (LF2), multiple-logged forest with 8 years regeneration (LF3), and oil palm plantation (OP). Hydrological and meteorological sensors and dataloggers were established in each catchment. Daily discharge was used for computing K via four estimation methods. Catchment ranks in terms of decreasing K were VJR (0.97841), LF3 (0.96692), LF2 (0.90347), PF (0.83886), and OP (0.86756). Catchment ranks in terms of decreasing annual baseflow were PF (1877 mm), LF3 (1265 mm), LF2 (812 mm), VJR (753 mm), and OP (367 mm), corresponding to 68%, 55%, 51%, 42%, and 38% of annual streamflow, respectively. Despite the low K, PF had the highest baseflow magnitude. OP had the fastest baseflow recession and lowest baseflow magnitude. Baseflow persistence decreased with increasing degree of disturbance. K showed strong association to catchment stem density instead of basal area. For dynamic catchments in this study, the K_b3 estimator is recommended based on its lowest combination of coefficient of variation (CoV) and root mean squared error (RMSE) of prediction. For wetter catchments with even shorter recession events, the K_b4 estimator may be considered. Regarding climate change, logging and oil palm agriculture should only be conducted after considering water resource availability. Forests (even degraded ones) should be conserved as much as possible in the headwaters for sustainable water resource. Full article

Malaysian palm oil mills have lagged behind in the adoption of advanced milling technologies, both to support productivity growth as well as meet sustainable development goals. Using primary data from a simple random sample of 54 mills, this study sought to examine the factors explaining the adoption of advanced milling technologies. The results from the logit regressions deployed show that top management support and mill size act as key drivers of new technology adoption. Importantly, organizational factors were more critical in the adoption of advanced milling technologies than technological and environmental factors. However, financial support and resources, technical skills, complexity, cost, and government support produced negative coefficients among the non-adopters. The results should help mill owners, managers, and policymakers to remove the barriers facing the non-adopters, and to create effective strategies to stimulate the adoption of advanced milling technologies. Full article

The palm oil industry has contributed enormously to the economic growth of developing countries in the tropics, including Malaysia. Despite the industry being a development tool for emerging economies, the oil palm crop is inundated with allegations of its unsustainable plantation practices and viewed as environmentally detrimental and socially adverse. These negative perceptions are amplified through anti-palm oil campaigns and protectionist trade regulations in developed countries, particularly in the European Union (EU). This situation, if further exacerbated, could potentially affect the export of palm oil and the industry as a whole. As such, this article provides a critical review of the key sustainability issues faced by the Malaysian palm oil industry as the second biggest exporter of palm oil to the global market. The various insights and the interpretations of sustainability are contested according to the contexts and the interests of the countries involved. Hence, palm oil is constantly exposed to bias masked by non-tariff barriers from consumer countries to protect their domestically produced vegetable oils. This could constrain the commodity competitiveness in the international market. As issues on palm oil sustainability continue to evolve, policymakers at key stakeholder agencies need to devise strategies to manage global disruption in the palm oil trade. Full article

Malaysia is the world’s second largest producer of palm oil, which, not unexpectedly, is one of the largest contributors to the country’s GDP. However, the Malaysian palm oil industry faces numerous issues, including a boycott for imports into the European Union (EU) on the basis that Malaysia does not allegedly practice good agriculture, fails to meet sustainability standards and exploits labor rights. To overcome the situation, the Government of Malaysia is strongly committed to implementing good agricultural practices that meet international sustainability standards through sustainable certification. To facilitate the adoption of sustainable certification by smallholder palm oil producers, through a comprehensive review of the literature, this study seeks to identify the social, environmental and economic benefits derived from sustainable certification. Full article

A ban on palm oil imports by the European Union has become a problematic issue, especially for palm oil producers’ countries. Oil palm has been widely used in many sub-sectors, and any changes in the production side may affect many sectors that use oil palm as an input factor in their productions. This study explores the chain of the oil palm sector on the other sub-sectors in Malaysia by using a value-added multiplier method and network modeling. The study focuses on the specific oil palm sub-sector and oils and fats sub-sector in the Malaysian economic structure based on the Malaysian Input-Output 2015 Table. Network visualization and all the analyses involving network methods were developed and performed using UCINET and GEPHI software. The value-added multiplier results explained that the net value between output multiplier and import multiplier is vital to depict the real impact of net resources used as an input factor in the oils and fats and oil palm sub-sectors. The high-density value level shows that the Malaysian oil palm sector has high connectivity in the economic system. From the network visualization analysis, the oils and fats sub-sector has a high level of integration with other sectors within the network. Meanwhile, the oil palm sub-sector categorized in the periphery structure group has a low level of integration in the input-output network. This is due to the high value-added demand for oil palm in the oils and fats sub-sector in the manufacturing sector. Overall, most of the sub-sectors in Malaysia are highly interconnected due to the high clustering ratio. Therefore, ensuring sufficient oil palm production is vital for sustainable production of other sub-sectors. Full article

The Malaysian palm oil is an important source of social development and economic growth in the country. Nevertheless, it has been accused of conducting unsustainable practices that may affect the sustainability of this industry. Thus, this study aims to identify the level of sustainability of crude palm oil (CPO) production. Environmental impacts were assessed using the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standardized life cycle assessment (LCA). Economic impacts were evaluated using life cycle costing (LCC). Social impact assessment was identified based on the UNEP/SETAC Guidelines for social life cycle assessment (S-LCA). Life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA) was used to combine three methods: LCA, life cycle costing (LCC) and S-LCA using the scoring system method. Finally, a presentation technique was developed to visualize the LCSA results. The results show that crude palm oil production requires more improvement to be a sustainable product. The study feasibly enables the decision-makers to understand the significant environmental, economic, and social hotspots during the crude palm oil production process in order to promote palm oil production. Full article

Oil palm is recognized as a golden crop, as it produces the highest oil yield among oil seed crops. Malaysia is the world’s second largest producer of palm oil; 16% of its land is planted with oil palm. To cope with the ever-increasing global demand on edible oil, additional areas of oil palm are forecast to increase globally by 12 to 19 Mha by 2050. Multisensor remote sensing plays an important role in providing relevant, timely, and accurate information that can be developed into a plantation monitoring system to optimize production and sustainability. The aim of this study was to simultaneously exploit the synthetic aperture radar ALOS PALSAR 2, a form of microwave remote sensing, in combination with visible (red) data from Landsat Thematic Mapper to obtain a holistic view of a plantation. A manipulation of the horizontal–horizontal (HH) and horizontal–vertical (HV) polarizations of ALOS PALSAR data detected oil palm trees and water bodies, while the red spectra L-band from Landsat data (optical) could effectively identify built up areas and vertical–horizontal (VH) polarization from Sentinel C-band data detected bare land. These techniques produced an oil palm area classification with overall accuracies of 98.36% and 0.78 kappa coefficient for Peninsular Malaysia. The total oil palm area in Peninsular Malaysia was estimated to be about 3.48% higher than the value reported by the Malaysian Palm Oil Board. The over estimation may be due the MPOB’s statistics that do not include unregistered small holder oil palm plantations. In this study, we were able to discriminate most of the rubber areas. Full article

Palm oil production from oil palm (Elaeis guineensis Jacq.) is vital for the economy of Malaysia. As of late, sustainable production of palm oil has been a key focus due to demand by consumer groups, and important progress has been made in establishing standards that promote good agricultural practices that minimize impact on the environment. In line with the industrial goal to build a traceable supply chain, several measures have been implemented to ensure that traceability can be monitored. Although the palm oil supply chain can be highly complex, and achieving full traceability is not an easy task, the industry has to be proactive in developing improved systems that support the existing methods, which rely on recorded information in the supply chain. The Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB) as the custodian of the palm oil industry in Malaysia has taken the initiative to assess and develop technologies that can ensure authenticity and traceability of palm oil in the major supply chains from the point of harvesting all the way to key downstream applications. This review describes the underlying framework related to palm oil geographical traceability using various state-of-the-art analytical techniques, which are also being explored to address adulteration in the global palm oil supply chain. Full article

Palm oil mill effluent (POME) is a major concern as open lagoon technology is not environment-friendly. Therefore, the palm oil industry refers to a roundtable on sustainable palm oil (RSPO), Indonesian sustainable palm oil (ISPO), and Malaysian sustainable palm oil (MSPO) standards for POME treatment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. An alternative POME treatment technology is the combination of open lagoon technology (COLT) with composting, biogas technology plus composting, biogas technology plus membrane, and biogas technology plus land application. The objective of this study is to analyze the life cycle assessment (LCA) result using a multi-criteria decision approach and to determine the implementation of POME treatment in the RSPO, ISPO, and MSPO standards. The LCA system boundary was considered from gate-to-gate and unit per ton of fresh fruit bunch as a functional unit. SimaPro^® was used as the LCA analysis tool; Expert Choice^® and Super Decision Software^® were used to perform the analytic hierarchy process and analytic network process, respectively. In this study, COLT–Biogas plus composting technology had the maximum priority weight (0.470), according to the opinion of experts. The results could help palm oil mill decision-makers in choosing environment-friendly POME treatment technology. Full article

Palm oil based biodiesel offers an alternative energy source that can reduce current dependence on conventional fossil fuels and may reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions depending on the type of feedstock and processes used. In the Malaysian context, the palm oil industry not only provides high-yield, renewable feedstock to the world, it brings socio-economic development to the Malaysian rural community and contributes to the national income. However, the sustainability of palm oil remains controversial, due to deforestation, pollution and social conflicts associated with its production. Sustainability assessment is vital for the palm oil industry to identify weaknesses, improve its sustainability performance and improve consumer confidence. This paper proposes a holistic sustainability assessment framework for palm oil production with the aim to address the weaknesses of existing palm oil sustainability assessment methods. It identifies environmental, social and economic Headline Performance Indicators, Key Performance Indicators and their Performance Measures in crude palm oil production in a structured framework. Each quantitative/semi-quantitative performance measure is translated into Likert Scale of 1–5, where 3 is the threshold value, 5 is the ideal condition, and 1 is the worst case scenario. Calculation methods were established for the framework to provide quantitative assessment results. The framework was tested using a hypothetical example with data from existing studies. The results suggest that crude palm oil production in Malaysia is below the sustainability threshold. Evaluations of this sustainability assessment framework also demonstrate that it is a comprehensive assessment method for assessing sustainability of feedstock for biofuel production. Full article