Palm-pressed fibre is a by-product produced by palm oil mill after screw-pressing of palm fruits during the production of crude palm oil (CPO). The palm-pressed fibre generated is normally burnt as solid fuel to self-supply steam and electricity required for the operation of the mill. However, the residual oil in the pressed fibre contains high level of carotenes (3500- 5000 ppm), tocols (2000-3000 ppm), sterols (4000-5000 ppm) and squalene (1000-1800 ppm) (Choo et al., 1996; Choo and Ma, 2000; Harrison et al., 2003). Recent findings show that there are significant amount of high value co-enzyme Q10 (Choo and Ng, unpublished data) watersoluble phenolics (antioxidants) in the fibre oil recovered by supercritical fluid technology (Choo and Harrison, unpublished data).

Main Researcher: Dr Choo Yuen May
Email: choo@mpob.gov.my