Global consumers are increasingly concerned with environmental issues and this has encouraged industries to introduce environmental-friendly products (Ragauskas et al., 2006). One of such industries that is adopting the ‘green’ movement is the polyol and polyurethane (PU) industries, where polyol producers and scientists worldwide have been actively producing polyols from renewable feedstock such as palm […]

Microemulsions are normally isotropic (or clear), very small in droplet size (<100 nm), low in viscosity and are thermodynamically stable solu-tions. However, the ordinary emulsions appear as milky white dispersions with higher viscosity, droplet size of >0.5 µm and are only kinetically stable. Thus, the properties of microemulsion systems have attracted many researchers, formulators, manufacturers […]

Oil palm trunk (OPT) is a naturally variable material, and thus, its physical and mechanical properties are far from homogeneous. For peeling of veneer, variations in basic properties-related parameters that include vascular bundles configuration, basic density distributions, moisture content gradients and shrinkage behaviour pose a challenge. Main Researcher: Kamarudin HassanEmail: kamardin@mpob.gov.my

The palm oil industry generates biomass in the form of oil palm empty fruit bunches (EFB), oil palm trunk (OPT), oil palm frond (OPF), mesocarp fibre and palm kernel shell (PKS). It was reported that a total of 439 mills were in operation with a total of 95.38 million tonnes of fresh fruit bunches (FFB) […]

The production of charcoal normally involves the heating of the biomass raw material at temperatures between 300°C-500°C, in which volatiles are emitted and removed during the process (Payakkawan et al., 2014). The carbon content is thus enriched, and an initial porosity and some ordering in the carbon structure is formed. Main Researcher: Dr Astimar Abd […]