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Alfa Laval’s POMEVap technology is key in driving sustainability in palm oil processing for major global benefit
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Tuesday, 28 January, 2025, 15 : 00 PM [IST]
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Stockholm, Sweden
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With palm oil demand and production on the increase across the globe, innovative technology developed by Alfa Laval is playing a key part in the drive to minimise environmental impacts as efforts to feed a growing global population with nutritious and safe food pick up pace.
POMEVap is a groundbreaking system in the oil processing sector that is already showing its value, with some striking results where it is being deployed in facilities around the world.
Palm oil, used in everything from chocolate to packaged bread, accounts for almost 40% of the world’s vegetable oil demand, and while its production brings major economic benefits, it also has significant sustainability challenges.
The traditional treatment of palm oil mill effluent (POME) is inefficient and unsustainable as it involves pumping a huge amount of wastewater into a system of football-pitch-sized ponds, where it is then treated, producing methane, without recovery of valuable by-products present in POME such as nutrient-rich solids and oil of about 1%, which ultimately goes to waste. However, POMEVap is changing this game.
Amol Hukkerikar, senior global sales, Alfa Laval BU Food Systems, said, “The POMEVap solution not only assists in generating additional income to the palm oil mills but also helps to solve associated greenhouse gas emissions issue, recover oil and generate clear water for reuse and helps the mills to achieve their sustainability goals.”
The system achieves this by using AlfaFlash ZLD evaporation technology to separate the POME into clear water, recovered palm oil, and a concentrate of nutrient-rich solids, which can be further processed and sold as animal feed. So, water is recycled as the condensate can be reused; oil and concentrate can be recovered and sold; less space is needed as a typical POMEVap needs just 300 square meters; and, strikingly, about 90 percent of methane generation is avoided and prevented from being emitted into the atmosphere.
For one palm oil producer in southern India, investment in a POMEVap system is allowing them to achieve local environmental standards, with an anticipated payback in four years as profitability is boosted through the recovery of additional palm oil using Alfa Laval decanter, which would otherwise have been lost in the POME.
“Efficient treatment of POME was a major concern for this customer because of the adverse effect on the environment and the loss of valuable by-products,” said Hukkerikar.
Following intensive product trials with Alfa Laval’s evaporation test unit during the sales phase, the company was impressed with the performance of the POMEVap solution. The full-scale system was installed and successfully commissioned at the plant at the end of 2023, with results meeting the customer’s expectations.
To give an idea of the oil recovery potential using POMEVap, a mill with a capacity to process 45 tonnes per hour of fresh fruit bunches (FFB) generates approximately 162,000 tonnes of POME per year. This raw POME contains approximately 1% oil and with the POMEVap system, it is possible to recover 50% of that oil, or 810 tonnes, per year.
“The recovered oil can be returned for oil clarification for further purification, or it can be also used as feedstock for HVO biofuel production allowed under the RED II framework in Europe,” concluded Amol.
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