Urgency of the Biogas Unit in the Palm Oil Mills

In palm oil mills with a big vision, business development is important and always receives special attention. Palm oil mills which generally only produce CPO (crude palm oil) and only a few produce PKO (palm kernel oil). Biomass wastes generated such as empty fruit bunches (EFB), fiber and palm kernel shells (PKS) have great potential to be developed into businesses. In addition, the kernel (palm kernel) which has only been sold to other parties can actually be processed by ownself into a PKO. Even CPO itself can also be developed into various derivative products such as cooking oil, stearin, olein and various other oleochemical products. To process the above material, will always need energy and the availability of energy especially those which become a major obstacle to various business developments in the palm oil mill.

Biogas from POME or palm oil mill effluent is a potential energy source that can be created to support a number of business developments based on the palm oil mill. Liquid waste in the form of POME is generally not utilized and is still a problem for most palm oil mills today. By processing it into biogas, it can then be converted to heat and electricity so that it can be utilized for business development that mentioned above. Under certain conditions the biogas produced can even be upgraded to CBG (Compressed Biomethane Gas) with the use as a substitute for fuel in trucks used in the palm oil industry.

There are two types of biogas reactors being developed at this time, namely by maing then covering the pool with a special rubber material (covered lagoon) and a continous stirred tank reactor (CSTR). Although it requires a wider area, the type of covered lagoon is more widely used because in addition to being simpler it can also accommodate more biogas volume. A palm oil mill using centrifugal oil separator will produce a lot of sludge which increases the COD (Chemical Oxygen Demand) thereby increasing the amount of biogas produced. While palm oil mills use decanters, the sludge will be separated so that the COD is low and so is the biogas product produced.

Biogas Water Absorber

The use of biogas to convert to thermal energy (in external combustion engines such as furnaces and boilers) is simpler than the conversion to electrical energy with a gas engine (typical of internal combustion engine). When biogas is converted into heat, the gas purification process is not even carried out and directly burned in the gas burner, so existing boiler of the palm oil can be used. But when it converted into electricity with a gas engine , the biogas purification process becomes important, because the quality of the gas is very influential on the performance and durability of the gas engine and automatically the electricity product produced. Biogas with a lot of H2S content will be corrosive so as to damage the gas engine unit and biogas with high CO2 content will reduce the calorific value so that the gas engine performance will decrease.