Industrial Training Programme at Palm Oil Mill

Refer to this training schedule if you are interested to undergo an industrial training at a palm oil mill. 

First Month
Week 1	1.      Familiarize with the working environment              -         know the locations, know the people, etc. 2.     Study the process flow chart (Appendix 1)              -         what are the raw materials and final products              -         what are the unit operations involved	At the end of this week, you shall know the various stages of the milling process.
Week 2	1.      Ramp operations              -         how to grade FFB              -         how many crops can the mill consume each day              -         how long can the crops stay fresh 2.     Weighbridge operations              -         what are the weigh in and weigh out               procedures	At the end of this week, you shall be able to differentiate the ripeness of bunches and how the ripeness affects the oil extraction rate.
Week 3	1.      Sterilization              -         how to operate transfer carriage              -         sterilization cycle (how many steps and duration of each step)              -         why sterilizing FFB              -         parameters to monitor 2.     Tipping              -         the number of cages to be tipped per hour 3.     Threshing              -         function and operation of thresher              -         use of USB crusher              -         parameters to monitor              -         what are hard bunches	At the end of this week, you shall be able to understand the sterilizing and post-sterilizing processes and the importance of these processes.
Week 4	1.   Digesting            -         function and operation of digester            -         parameters to monitor 2.  Screw pressing            -         function and operation of screw press            -         parameters to monitor	At the end of this week, you shall be able to know the main parameters to monitor for digesting and screw pressing processes.
Second Month
Week 1	1.    Oil clarification             -         how to clarify the oil             -         how to enhance the clarification process             -         parameters to monitor 2.   Vacuum drying             -         how to create vacuum             -         parameters to monitor 3.   CPO storage             -         capacity of the storage tank             -         parameters to monitor	At the end of this week, you shall know the purification steps involved to produce CPO that meets the control limits.
Week 2	1.    Desanding             -         what is desanding and why desanding             -         how many stages of desanding 2.   Decanting/sludge separation             -         products of decanting process             -         operation of decanter/sludge separator 3.   Empty bunch pressing             -         why pressing empty bunch             -         operation of empty bunch press 4.   Incineration             -         the use of incinerator	At the end of this week, you shall know how to recover useful products from the sludge oil and empty bunches.
Week 3	1.    Cake breaking & fiber and nut separation 2.   Destoning & light dust transfer system (LDTS)             -         how to separate fiber and nut             -         how to remove unwanted substances 3.   Nut cracking             -         ripple mill efficiency 4.   Kernel and shell separation & kernel drying             -         operation of hydrocyclone             -         parameters to monitor	At the end of this week, you shall know how to produce quality PK from the screw press cake.
Week 4	Water treatment process             -         what are the chemicals used             -         steps involved in the treatment process             -         daily duties of the water treatment plant’s operator	At the end of this week, you shall know the basic water treatment process.
Third Month
Week 1	Boiler operations             -         fuel used for burning             -         capacity of the boiler             -         what is softener and deaerator             -         function of various fans (fuel feeder, forced draft, induced draft, etc.)             -         parameters to monitor (pressure, water level, etc.)             -         what is the use of steam             -         basic turbine operation             -         what are the main components of boiler	At the end of this week, you shall know the basic operation of the water-tube boiler.
Week 2	Lab operations             -         how to monitor the quality of CPO and PK             -         familiarize with the testing methods             -         boiler water and waste water testing procedures             -         how to determine oil loss             -         how to ullage BST, kernel silo and kernel bunker	At the end of this week, you shall know how to test the quality of CPO, PK, boiler water and waste water.
Week 3	Palm oil mill effluent (POME)             -         what is the function of deoiling             -         different stages of biological treatment process (anaerobic, facultative, aerobic)             -         parameters to monitor (BOD, COD, etc.)             -         operation of belt press	At the end of this week, you shall be able to know the basic waste water treatment process.
Week 4	Presentation             -         conduct a presentation to showcase what you have learned throughout the three months of ITP

POME (Palm Oil Mill Effluent)

One of the by-products of the palm oil milling process is POME (palm oil mill effluent). Raw POME is a high strength waste water with BOD more than 25,000 mg/L. Guess what is the BOD of the sewage? It is 100 times less than that of POME which is less than 500 mg/L. How to reduce the BOD down to 100 mg/L or less to meet the discharge limit set by the Department of Environment (DOE)? In Sarawak, DOE has set a more stringent discharge limit which is 50 mg/L or lower. 

BOD (biochemical oxygen demand) is the amount of oxygen needed for the microorganisms to break down the organic matters in the waste water at certain temperature over a specific time period. What we normally see is BOD at 20 degree celcius over 5 days (a worldwide practice). However, for POME, DOE practices BOD at 30 degree celsius over 3 days. The reasons are 30 degree celsius is closer to the temperature of the treated POME and 3 days give a faster results for monitoring purpose.

Usually you will see a thick scum on top of the anaerobic ponds. What are they? They are mainly oily matters and light components in the POME. What you need to do is to break the scum by spraying water or waste water so that the scum can be digested faster by the bacteria. You are encouraged to spray the waste water from the subsequent pond. It contains bacteria. Another benefit is to lengthen the retention time of the waste water as it is recycled back to the previous pond. For the anaerobic ponds to stay in good condition, use one or two mixers to mix the waste water and bacteria evenly. Do not mix the ponds too vigorously as it can introduce some oxygen into the ponds. Oxygen shall not present in the anaerobic ponds. The anaerobes are not going to live happily with the presence of oxygen. I will continue on the waste water treatment process in the next post.

    

Palm Oil Industry

Greeting to everyone. I will be publishing a series of palm oil industry related posts, including standard operating procedure (SOP), wastewater and boiler water testing methods, scheduled waste management, etc. I have a few years experience in the industry and would like to share my knowledge with everyone who is interested to know more about the industry. I am from chemical engineering background. So, I will be touching a lot of chemistry. Yes, don't keep the palm oil industry purely mechanical, there are plenty of chemistry. Indeed, everything can be related to the chemistry. 

Aerosol

Everyone uses aerosol! But what is aerosol? Color spray, mosquito insecticide or anything that is under pressure and released as a fine spray. How does aerosol work? Aerosol is made up of two components which are the product and propellant. What is propellant and what is its function? The propellant act as the 'engine', the driving force of the aerosol.

The propellant mainly exists as liquefied gas in the head space above the product. When the aerosol valve is opened, the propellant pushes the product out of the can. The amount of propellant remains the same in the head space. However the space increases, leading to a drop in pressure. Some of the common propellants used are liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), chloroflorocarbon (CFC), carbon dioxide, compressed air and nitrogen gas.

What is petrol made of?

Do you know that petrol is made of a mixture of hydrocarbons? It mainly consists of octane C8H18. Opppsss, your car is running out of fuel. You go to a petrol station. You wonder what RON 95 and RON 97 are? Which one do you use? Of course the cheaper one LAH! Actually RON refers to Research Octane Number. The higher the number, the more the concentration of octane in the fuel. However it is expensive and difficult to produce petrol with only iso-octane in it. So, petrol consists of iso-octane, other hydrocarbons and some additives. Before that, people were adding tetraethyl lead as anti-knocking agent to prevent the fuel from exploding. It is now banned due to its poisonous nature. You go for higher rating fuel (RON 97), you pay more. But it is better for your car.

Testing the Presence of C=C Double Bond

Okay, your teacher gave you two solutions. Solution A is pentane and solution B is pentene. How would you distinguish between the two? Prepare two test tubes. Add a few drops of bromine water to both of the tubes containing pentane and pentene, respectively. Observe! That solution that decolourizes is PENTENE. Alkene undergoes halogenation with bromine to produce dibromopentane. No reaction between pentane and bromine water, reddish-brown colour remains.

Alkane

Let's take a closer look at the alkane. Alkane does not have any functional group. They are saturated hydrocarbons. Have you ever wondered what it means by n-butane, n-pentane? n refers to normal or straight chain hydrocarbon. Why it does not apply to propane? This is because ... propane has no isomers. n- only for isomers, starting from butane. You have isobutane, isopentane, etc.