Abstract
The study was designed to assess the energy requirement, biomass generation and the contribution of biomass in oil palm processing from1 tonne of fresh fruit bunch (FFB) by a semi-mechanized palm oil processing mill in Nigeria. The energy required for the extract oil from fresh fruit was measured at the Bayelsa Palm Mill, Elebele, Nigeria. The average weight of FFB was 13.5 kg. The mass balance of FFB during processing is 26.0 % empty fruit bunch (EFB), 1.5 % chaff, 18.5% nut, 30.0 % palm press fibre (PPF), 14.0% moisture and 10.0% crude palm oil (CPO).The biomass generated during the processing of CPO from 1 tonne of FFB is 259.0 kg (EFB), 301.9 kg (PPF) and 14.8 kg (chaff). Of these, only 234.9 kg of EFB was utilized as fuel for boiling, while 1.85 liters of diesel was used to power generator for stripping, digestion/pressing and fiber separation. Majority of the biomass generated were un-utilized. About 40% of the potential energy in the biomass was utilized by the mills, while the rest was disposed by open combustion. The total energy utilized for the processing of FFB is 4291.39 MJ/ tonne. Of these, biomass fuel accounted for 97.5%, while fossil fuel supplied the remaining 2.5%. We conclude that the excess biomass can be converted into liquid fuel via pyrolysis and/or gasification and used for digestion purposes to attain 100% energy self-sufficiency to prevent air quality impacts associated with the open air combustion of excess biomass. Other potential biofuel that could be generated from oil palm waste biomass include solid (briquette), liquid (bioethanol, bio-methanol, bio-oil) and gaseous fuel (biogas, bio-hydrogen).