RESEARCH ARTICLE

Journal of Oil Palm Research Vol. 34 (2) June 2022, p. 300-310

PARAMETRIC STUDY ON TRASH SEPARATION EFFICIENCY IN FFB CONSIGNMENT

CHE RAHMAT CHE MAT1,2*; ROHAYA MOHAMED HALIM1; NADIAHNOR MD YUSOP2,3; NU’MAN ABDUL HADI1 and ANDREW YAP KIAN CHUNG1

DOI: https://doi.org/10.21894/jopr.2021.0035
Received: 25 January 2021   Accepted: 13 June 2021   Published Online: 25 August 2021
ABSTRACT

Trash or contamination in oil palm fresh fruit bunches (FFB) is one of the major problems encountered by palm oil millers. Trash is commonly referred to as non-oil palm fruit matters, such as stones, sand, soil, mud, wood, grass, leaves and twigs, which are constituted in FFB consignments delivered to the mills. Trash is undesirable as it often causes choking, severe process machinery wear and tear and reduction in oil extraction rate (OER) due to the inclusion of trash weight. In this study, a vibrating trash separating machine prototype was developed locally to separate undesirable trash from FFB consignments. This study aimed to evaluate the performance of this prototype machine based on the total amount of trash removed from the FFB and loose fruits consignments. Three gap size configurations were studied, namely 45, 30 and 15 mm. The results showed that the prototype machine successfully removed trash from wet and dry FFB consignments with separation efficiencies of 80.95% and 91.91%, respectively. The best gap size between the rod bars was indicated by 15 mm. This prototype machine is expected to solve the contamination issue during palm oil milling process due to lack of efficient system to remove trash from the FFB consignments.

KEYWORDS:


1 Malaysian Palm Oil Board,
6 Persiaran Institusi, Bandar Baru Bangi,
43000 Kajang, Selangor, Malaysia.

2 School of Chemical Engineering,
College of Engineering, Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM),
40450 Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia.

3 Energy, Oil and Gas Unit,
Smart Manufacturing Research Institute (SMRI),
Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM),
40450 Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia.

Corresponding author e-mail: cherahmat@mpob.gov.my