The 5 million hectares of oil palm plantations in Malaysia, produces over 18 million tonnes of crude palm oil and 80 million tonnes of biomass a year. Biomass from the oil palm industry includes the trunks (OPT), fronds (OPF), shells, empty fruit bunches (EFB), mesocarp pressed fibre (MPF) and palm oil mill effleunt (POME). Anout 18 tonnes of total biomass produced. Presently, the EFB is mainly used as much, but the economics are marginal due to the high transport and handling cost. There has been value-added applications of EFB in compost, bio-composite and bio-based chemicals. One of the issues in commercialising the EFB is its processing into fibres for the specific sectors.

Main Research: Dr Zulkifli Ab Rahman