Palm oil waste for energy efficiency and the circularity of mills

Summary

The waste from palm oil production includes not only the effluents from the mills (palm oil mill effluent, pome) but also empty fruit bunches, mesocarp fibres, and palm kernel shells...All these elements, if used for anaerobic digestion in covered lagoons, can produce a substantial amount of biogas which, in turn, can be converted into electrical and thermal energy.Julien Voogt, from Wageningen University, has studied how much this waste can contribute to the increase in the efficiency and energy self-consumption of mills, as well as to their circularity.