Palm Oil Replanting Movement and Utilization of Biomass Waste

Palm oil trees begin to lose productivity after 20 years and need to be replaced after 25 years, while new trees take about four years to begin bearing fruit. This generally renders the land unproductive during this four-year period, which discourages farmers from replanting their palm oil. However, intercropping during this period can still provide benefits for farmers. Planting short-term crops like upland rice and corn alongside palm oils can help farmers earn additional income while the palm oils bear fruit and mature.

In 2024, Malaysia, the world's second-largest palm oil producer, began implementing land intensification due to limited land area, only replanting 2%, or approximately 114,000 hectares. This is despite the country's target of replanting 5% of its land. The situation in Indonesia is not much different, with replanting predicted to be less than 2%. For example, if only 1.5%, or approximately 246,000 hectares, are replanted, it would be disproportionate to the area of ​​its oil palm plantations, which is nearly three times Malaysia's. Furthermore, replanting should be carried out periodically every year to achieve optimal palm oil production performance.

The reluctance or slow pace of replanting has led to a decline in national crude palm oil (CPO) production. Malaysian palm oil production has even stagnated for more than a decade due to limited land for new plantations and slow replanting. Meanwhile, in Indonesia, concerns about deforestation have also impacted the expansion of new oil palm plantations. Crude palm oil (CPO) production will decline further if labor shortages and the spread of ganoderma fungus reduce yields.

Given the above conditions, the replanting of palm oil plantations must be encouraged to maintain or even increase palm oil production. The issue of biomass waste from palm oil trees, which cover thousands of hectares, also poses a challenge. With such a large volume of old palm oil trees, utilizing them for value-added products is crucial. With an average hectare of palm oil plantations containing 125 trees, each tree yielding an average dry weight of 2 tons, this yields 250 tons of dry weight of biomass per hectare. For 10,000 hectares, this yields 2.5 million tons of dry weight, and for 100,000 hectares, this yields 25 million tons of dry weight. An optimistic estimate would be that Indonesia could replant 5% of its land, or 820,000 hectares, for 205 million tons of dry weight of biomass. Similarly, Malaysia, with 5% replanting, or 285,000 hectares, would yield 71.25 million tons of dry weight.

Business readiness factors, both in terms of technology and the market or user base for the product, need to be carefully assessed. With such a large volume, biomass processing plants or industries can be established and operate optimally without worrying about raw material shortages. Products such as pellets, briquettes, and biochar are made from waste biomass from old palm oil trunks. Dead old palm oil trunks, often left abandoned on land, should be utilized to produce these useful, value-added products.

Densified Biomass (Biomass Pellet & Biomass Block) for Animal Bedding

In contrast to wood pellets used for fuel so that their quality or characteristics are reviewed from the combustion side such as calorific value, ash content to ash chemistry, wood pellets used for animal bedding have different quality requirements. In wood pellets for fuel, the performance factor and efficiency of power plants are the benchmarks, while for wood pellets for animal bedding, the health factor of livestock is the benchmark. The use of animal bedding is mainly in subtropical areas or areas with four seasons and the need is increasing in winter. The use of wood pellets for animal bedding is indeed not as popular as wood pellets for fuel so its usage is also not as much as use for fuel. For animal bedding, the quality of wood pellets required is the ability to absorb water, not too hard (low density), not containing harmful ingredients and a soft texture. Not only wood pellets are commonly used as animal bedding, but also biomass blocks.

By compacting (densification) such as pellets and blocks, transportation costs are cheaper, making it easier for storage and use. Historically, the first animal bedding used was straw because it was easy to obtain and widely available. Lack of straw, such as low water absorption, so that more urine flows out than is absorbed, and also after being mixed with urine and livestock manure, the livestock can still eat it so that it often causes stomach pain, which encourage the innovations for animal bedding. In addition, straw also often contains quite a lot of dust and requires a large space for storage. Wood shaving is the next animal bedding material that is better than straw.

Wood shaving in the form of bales is usually traded for this animal bedding. The dust is also removed before the wood shaving is baled, so it does not become a respiratory problem in certain animals such as horses and dairy cows. The water absorption ability of wood shaving is also better than that of straw, which is around 260% to 420% while that of straw is only around 200%. Some manufacturers even enrich the wood shaving with enzymes and bacteria to bind ammonia so it doesn't escape into the air. This product makes the life of animal bedding longer and after that it can be a good compost manure. However, because the density of the bales of wood shaving is quite low, which is less than 200 kg/m3 so it is less economical for transportation and long-distance use. This is so that biomass densification into wood pellets or biomass pellets and biomass blocks is the solution to this problem.

A number of the above biomass compaction products have been used for animal bedding. In a number of countries with four seasons such as horses, dairy cows and chickens using animal bedding, this product indirectly supports food security, especially animal protein sources such as meat and milk. Another important factor is that the animal bedding products do not come from biomass which contains hazardous materials or must come from untreated wood (if it comes from wood biomass), so that raw materials from wood that are painted, polished, caulked or contain other chemicals cannot be used. As for the raw materials above, albasia is a type of soft wood, EFB or empty fruit bunch of palm oil, OPT or oil palm trunks are commonly obtained during replanting of the palm oil plantations and cocopeat is a side product of the cocofiber industry or coconut fiber processing.

Wood Waste of Replanting For Sawdust Charcoal Briquette Production

Palm Oil Trunk

Rubber Wood

At a certain age the trees on large plantations are no longer productive so they need to be replanted to maintain the sustainability of the plantation business. Two large plantation groups in Indonesia, which cover millions of hectares, are palm oil plantations and rubber plantations. Wood waste from the trunks of these trees can reach thousands or even millions of tons, and is generally not utilized. Indeed, there are uses of replanting wood waste for furniture, buildings and household appliances industries, but the portion is still very small so it cannot absorb the huge volume of wood. For example rubber wood can also be used for industrial furniture, wood and building wood, as well as palm oil logs. Even rubber wood is also used for making particle boards such as MDF (Medium Density Fibreboard) or HDF (High Density Fibreboard).

Sawdust Charcoal Briquette

Sawdust Briquette Charcoal in Carton Box

The utilization or processing of replanting wood waste for the production of wood charcoal briquette (sawdust charcoal briquette) is the right solution for this problem. Large market potential factors and product specification requirements that are not too difficult make this business attractive. In contrast to wood pellet products which are usually for power plants that require large volumes of supply and very strict specifications, so sawdust charcoal briquette products in addition to the volume of supply also do not have to be large and the specifications are more loose. This is because the use of sawdust charcoal briquette is for barbecue or more specifically mostly for roasting lamb meat in Saudi Arabia, the Middle East and Turkey. In wood pellets for electricity generation specifications are often difficult to fulfill, especially in the chemical aspects of ash such as chlorine, potassium and even sulfur, to be more clearly read here. Whereas in the production of sawdust charcoal briquette for chemical ash, the level of which is only ppm is not a problem at all.

Charcoal Briquette Production Route

Many people think that the production of sawdust briquette charcoal requires additional adhesives such as starch (tapioca), this is understandable because many people still do not know about the production process of the sawdust charcoal briquette. To produce charcoal briquettes in general, using charcoal raw material is then crushed into powder and added adhesive (such as starch) and then briquetted. The briquette product is then dried and packaged to be marketed. The production process of charcoal briquettes in this way is less good and less acceptable to the market. While the production process by means of the wood is crushed about the size of sawdust and then dried and then briquetted. The briquetting does not require adhesive because in wood there is always a lignin compound, which is useful as the adhesive. Furthermore, the briquettes are carbonized to increase fixed carbon and reduce volatile matter. Charcoal briquette products in this way, commonly called sawdust charcoal briquette, have better quality and are in demand by the market. The above scheme is enough to explain 2 routes of the production process of two types of charcoal briquettes.

Wood waste of replanting in time will also run out and be replaced by new plants. How can the sawdust charcoal briquette production business continue? A production unit certainly requires a supply of raw materials. To be able to continue to supply raw materials for production, one alternative is to make energy plantations. The energy plantations can be with fast rotation plants such as calliandra or gliricidae. To optimize woody biomass productivity and business, the energy plantation should be integrated with sheep, cattle and honey bee farms. And for more details can be read here.

OPT Charcoal Pellet Production for Waste of Oil Palm Trunk Solution

Oil palm trunk waste as well as biomass in general can be used for sources of energy, materials and chemicals. So much oil palm waste is because currently most of the oil palm plantations in Indonesia are old and enter a period of massive replanting. In addition, replanting is also a periodic program conducted by oil palm plantations to continue to maintain the sustainability of its production, so that palm oil waste is always available. Indonesia and Malaysia with a total oil palm plantation area of ​​around 17 million hectares of course have a lot of palm oil waste. If 1 hectare is planted with 130 palm trees, the palm tree population in both countries has reached 2.21 billion palm trees. The current era of bioeconomy encourages massive and sustainable use of biomass, so that initially considered waste is now a potential raw material. Charcoal production from palm oil waste also does not damage the environment because it is a tree that must be replaced with new plants.

The use of palm oil trunks for energy sources is one of them by making pellets (OPT pellets) which currently also have producers. Another option is to be made into charcoal pellets (OPT Charcoal Pellet). Before being pelleted first, the oil palm trunk is carbonised through the process of pyrolysis or carbonization. The charcoal produced is then compacted into pellets (OPT Charcoal Pellet) with a little added adhesive. There are many advantages that can be obtained by the pyrolysis process, especially continuous pyrolysis. In addition to the main products in the form of charcoal, biooil by-products, biomass vinegar (liquid smoke) and syngas are also of high economic value. Biooil can be used directly as liquid fuel for example for burners or ship fuels. Biooil can also be upgraded for a variety of general vehicle fuels such as gasoline or diesel oil. Biooil as well as crude oil can also be upgraded for the production of various chemicals (bio-based chemical).

Biomass vinegar (liquid smoke) can be used as a biopesticide or liquid organic fertilizer. Fertilization will restore nutrients or organic matter to the tree or plantation. This is important to be done to maintain the sustainability of the oil palm plantation itself, which is currently one of the main concerns. Syngas can be used as direct fuel such as biooil, or used for electricity generation using a gas engine. While the main product, charcoal after being pelleted, can be used as fuel or agricultural charcoal (biochar). The charcoal market is usually for the food industry, namely for heat sources, in contrast to wood pellets which are widely used in power plants.