Environ Dev Sustain

DOI 10.1007/s10668-012-9390-4
REVIEW

Using biomass residues from oil palm industry as a raw

material for pulp and paper industry: potential benefits
and threat to the environment
Pooja Singh Othman Sulaiman Rokiah Hashim Leh Cheu Peng
Rajeev Pratap Singh

Received: 5 June 2012 / Accepted: 11 September 2012

 Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2012

Abstract Oil palm industries produce an enormous quantity of lignocellulosic biomass;

in the form of large leaves of palm tree, pruned fronds (OPF) and oil palm trunks (OPT) at
the plantations site. Besides this, the processing of fresh fruit bunches in the oil mills
generates empty fruit bunches (EFB), shells, kernel cake and mesocarp fibers. The proper
management of this burgeoning waste and its disposal is an ardent task and creates
environmental hazards. In order to deal with the biomass residues, the urgent need is that it
should be transformed into resources with industrial utility. As the economic development
has resulted in the significant increased demand for paper, the industry is looking for
eccentric sources to fulfill the requirement. The pulp and paper industry preferred use of
coniferous and deciduous trees for papermaking because their cellulose fibers in the pulp
make durable paper. With improvements in pulp processing technology, fibers of almost
any non-wood of plants species like bamboo, cereal straw, sugarcane, flax, hemp and jute
can be used for paper pulp. Substituting this lignocellulosic material can reduce the burden
on forest while supporting the natural biodiversity. The present review deals with the
possibilities of using oil palm biomass as a raw material for pulp and papermaking, as this
would ameliorate its waste management problem. The potential of oil palm biomass and
the challenges regarding its use in papermaking are discussed. The use of oil palm biomass
will apparently prove that the oil palm industry is ecofriendly in every aspect of its
activities and aid in sustainability of forest ecosystem.
Keywords Palm oil
Empty fruit bunch
Oil palm frond
Oil palm trunk

Pulp
Paper

P. Singh (&)
O. Sulaiman
R. Hashim
L. C. Peng

Division of Bio-resource, Paper and Coatings Technology, School of Industrial Technology,
Universiti Sains Malaysia, 11800 Penang, Malaysia
e-mail: poojasingh1775@gmail.com
R. P. Singh
Institute of Environment and Sustainable Development, Banaras Hindu University,
Varanasi 220005, India

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P. Singh et al.

1 Introduction
Oil palm (Elaeis guineensis) is a significant viable crop in many tropical regions of the
world because the mesocarp and the kernel of its fruit yield useful oil (Wahid 2010;
Hashim et al. 2011). The chief oil palm producers are countries of West and Central Africa,
Central America and South East Asia (Wan Rosli and Law 2011). The development of the
palm oil sector has proven to be a powerful engine for economic progress of the countries
cultivating oil palm (Lane 2012). The palm tree is monoecious, perennial and belongs to
family Palmaceae (Kamarul 2008).
The palm oil has versatile qualities like being used as an edible food ingredient, in many
industrial products and also as an environmentally friendly biofuel (Gilbert 2012). Palm oil
is the worlds most important vegetable oil and contributes largest in terms of total production quantity (Teoh 2010). In 2009, the global palm oil production amounted to 43.4
million tons (FAO 2009). It is the number one player in the oils and fats trade, and in 2011,
it controlled 57.7 % of the export market share. The oil palm is the most productive among
any other edible oil plants, because it yields 10 times more oil per acre giving long-term
profits to the growers (Anon 2011). Besides oil palm is also the most efficient perennial
crop, the supply of palm oil is consistent as it is not easily affected by the adverse weather
and disaster (Andriani et al. 2011). The worlds demand for oils and fats has risen steadily
over the years; thus, South East Asian countries particularly Malaysia and Indonesia have
focused on cultivating oil palm crop and together they contributed about 85 % of world
palm oil production in 2008, accounting nearly 36 million tons (MPOB) (Fig. 1). In 2011,
the land under oil palm cultivation reached 5 million hectares (MPOB 2008). The contributions of oil palm plantations have undoubtedly conferred gains on local livelihoods
and have boosted the country economies. On the other hand, the oil palm has augmented
negative impacts to biodiversity, environmental menace and has raised social concerns
(Obidzinski et al. 2012). The rise in plantations has significant direct and indirect threats to
the environment, and most direct outcome in the country is clearance and felling of natural
vegetation and its replacement by oil palm monoculture (Motel et al. 2009).
The plentiful lignocellulosic residues produced from oil palm industries are oil palm
fronds (OPF), oil palm trunks (OPT) and empty fruit bunches (EFB). Palm oil industry in
Malaysia produced about 95.3 million tons of dry lignocellulosic biomass in 2009 (Basiron

Fig. 1 Global palm oil production in year 2008 (MPOB, Rupani et al. 2010)

123

l(

27

%
)

Potential benefits and threat

be
an

oi
Pa
lm
Sunflow

oi
l(
23

So
y

pe
Ra

ds
see

%
(12
oil

s(
11
%
)

5%
s (1
fat
al
im
An

Ot
he
r

La
ur
ics

er oil (7

(5
%

%)

Fig. 2 Share of worlds oils and fats production (Oil World 2008)

and Simeh 2005; Wan Rosli and Law 2011), as the economic life of oil palm is only
25 years after that the trunks are chopped and make residual wood debris (Fig. 2).
From the oil mills during palm oil generation process, massive amount of waste like the
empty fruit bunch (EFB) and oil palm fronds (OPF) is generated. Approximately 1 tonne of
crude palm oil (CPO) is produced from 5.8 tonnes of fresh fruit bunch (FFB) (Pleanjai
et al. 2004; Singh et al. 2011) (Fig. 3). After processing the oil, the palm oil industry
generates huge quantity of waste (Fig. 4). Fiber, shell, decanter cake and empty fruit bunch
(EFB) account for 30, 6, 3 and 28.5 % of the FFB, respectively (Fig. 4). In 2004, nearly
26.7 million tonnes of solid biomass and an average of 30 million tonnes of POME were
generated from 381 palm oil mills in Malaysia (Yacob 2008). During processing in the
palm oil mill, more than 70 % (by weight) of the processed fresh fruit bunch (FFB) are
residual as oil palm waste (Prasertsan and Prasertsan 1996). Tackling with such a huge
quantity of waste from palm oil mill is a gigantic task, as if not dealt properly may lead to
environment degradation as they are rich in organic substances (Singh et al. 2010a, 2011).
Open burning is one way to manage this waste; however, it causes uncontrollable environmental apprehensions. Second approach is that wastes are left to dry in fields, but here
they take a long time to biodegrade on their own. The immeasurable quantity of biomass
available in the industry can also be transformed into significant additional products, which
may be a possible revenue generator (Hashim et al. 2011).
The study throws a light on the prospect of using the waste generated from palm oil
industries in providing the raw material for pulp and papermaking. The physicochemical
properties of fibers from the frond, empty fruit bunches and stem of oil palm tree that deem
fit to be used in papermaking are assessed and compared with other raw materials to see its
feasibility. The initiative for total use of lignocellulosic oil palm biomass will definitely

123

P. Singh et al.

Fresh fruit bunch

FB (5.26- 6.25 tons)

Water for boiler (2.24.6m3)

Boiler Ash (0.02-0.06tons)

STERILIZATION

EFB (1.42-1.88tons)

STRIPPING

DIGESTION
Fibre (1.42-2.06 ton)

EXTRACTION

Decanter Cake (0.050.31ton)

OIL PURIFICATION

CRUDE PALM OIL (CPO) 1

ton

NUT & FIBRE

NUT CRACKING

Kernel (0.26-0.38) tons

Shell (0.26-0.44tons)

Fig. 3 Stages in production of palm oil, type and quantity of waste produced. Source: Modified from Oil
recovery from palm oil solid wastes. Dashiny Gopal: BSc Thesis Chemical Engineering, University
Malaya Pahang (2009)

help in forest conservation and in building a sustainable future through effective environmental practices and solves the waste disposal crisis in oil palm growing countries.

2 The far-reaching palm oil production

The contribution of oil palm agriculture has been of prime importance, and the countries
have a share in worlds oil and fats market. The contributions are Columbia 2 %, Nigeria
2 %, Liberia 2.5 %, Ghana 2 %, Papua new guinea 1.5 %, Ivory coast 0.8 % and Thailand
2 %, respectively. The oil palm plantations in Malaysia and Indonesia have scaled up
spectacularly since the past five decades (Hashim et al. 2011). The magnitude of growth of
oil palm plantations all through has caused 4.69 million hectares of planted area and a
produced 20.336 tonnes oil per ha yearly (Hansen 2007; Rupani et al. 2010). The consequence of oil palm cropping has generated huge amount of waste that largely creates
difficulties in replanting. Malaysia oil palm industry produced 95.3 million tonnes of dry
lignocellulosic biomass in 2009 and will continue to rise as planted area reaches 4.74
million ha in 2015 (Wahid 2010; Sitti Fatimah et al. 2012). (http://econ.mpob.gov.my/
economy/overview_2012.pdf).
Although oil palm biomass is available in bulk amount, their has not been any commercial achievement of its pulping specially that of fronds and trunks (Wanrosli et al.
2007). In 2009, the planted acreage was on 4.49 million hectares of the agricultural land.
The country has only 0.41 % of the worlds population, but it produces approximately

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Potential benefits and threat

Fresh fruit bunch

(100 %)

Fruits
(70 %)

Empty fruit bunch

(20 %)

Evaporation
(10 %)

Bunch ash
(0.5 %)
Crude oil
(43 %)
Pericarp
(14 %)

Nuts
(13 %)

Pure oil
(21 %)

Solids (Animal
feed / fertilizer
(2 %)

Water
evaporation
(2 %)

Dry fibre
fuel
(12 %)

Water
evaporation
(20%)
Kernel
(6 %)

Shell
(6 %)
Moisture
(1 %)

Fig. 4 Products from oil mill process (Lorestani 2006)

10.7 % of the global vegetable oils and fats on 55 % of its total land (Yusof et al. 2004). In
Indonesia, the oil palm plantations are done on a fresh cleared rain forest, peat-swamp
forest, and thus, the wasteland remains unexploited (Brown and Jacobson 2005). As forests
are cleared for these plantations and consumption of wood supplies also continues to grow,
the country needs to focus their attention on the use of substitute fiber sources. As oil palm
fiber is readily available, the potential use of this waste in pulp and papermaking can solve
most of the dumping problems and may also help in sustaining the environment curbing
undesirable practices with oil palm.

3 Characteristics of oil palm fiber

Morphologically, the oil palm tree is single-stemmed and grows erect up to 20 m tall with
pinnate leaves of length 5 m. The key feature oil palm is that its economic life lasts for
nearly 2530 years (Singh et al. 2010a). The flora is formed in clusters and each flower is

123

P. Singh et al.

tiny, with three sepals and three petals. Khoo et al. (1991) concluded that it being a
monocotyledon is similar to sugarcane in possessing a parenchymatous tissue with fiber
bundles in core region and is surrounded by a rigid peripheral layer. Oil palms are the
arrangement of vascular bundles, and parenchymatous tissues in oil palms fibers are unlike
those found in other wood species (Tomimura 1992; Sitti Fatimah et al. (2012). Oil palm
trunks have several extraordinary distinctive features, foremost one is they are capable of
holding high moisture content as compared to a typical wood species. The moisture content
is normally between 40 and 50 %, indicating the presence of a large quantity of sap in oil
palm (Kosugi et al. 2010). Secondly, the content of cellulose and lignin is moderately
lesser, and higher contents of water-soluble and NaOH-soluble compounds compared to
rubber wood and bagasse (He and Terashima 1990; Husin et al. 1985). The oil palm tree
has 20.5 % lignin content that is quite equivalent to that found in hardwood trees, for
example, aspen has nearly 18.1 % (Law and Jiang 2001) and eucalyptus has about 22 %
(Alcaide et al. 1990) (Table 1). The role of lignin is to assist in mechanical support for
plant organs (Boudet 2000; Douglas 1996), and this enables the plants to be erect and
increase in height (Zhong et al. 1997). Lignin being water-resistant supports cell walls and
avoids their break up. This property is beneficial and makes the fibers to be chemically
pulped easily. Lignin along with cellulose is the most abundant polymer in nature (Perez
et al. 2002). It is present in the cell wall and provides structural support, impermeability
and resistance against microbial attack and oxidative stress. Thirdly, the oil palm species
lack vascular cambium, so there is no increase in the tress diameter with age. The principal
variation between oil palm and non-monocotyledon species wood is the distinct occurrence
of the primary vascular bundles that are indiscriminately enclosed in the parenchyma group
tissues (Hng et al. 2011).
The monomer composition of polysaccharides of oil palm shows only glucose and
xylose with the other monosaccharide representing less than 6 %, which is in broad
similarity with that of hardwoods. The parenchymatous tissue does not have characteristics
of fiber and needs large amount of chemicals that are consumed for pretreatment and yield
of usable pulp is less. The fiber lengths of the fibers of oil palms are comparable to those of
hard woods of Acacia mangium and Betula papyrifera, and soft wood Populus tremuloides
(Table 2).

Table 1 Physical and chemical characteristics of oil palm empty fruit bunch and trembling aspen
Properties
Length-weighted fiber length (mm)
Fiber diameter (D) (lm)

Oil palm empty fruit bunch

0.99
19.1

Trembling aspen
0.96
20.8

Cell-wall thickness (T) (lm)

3.38

1.93

Fiber coarseness (mg/m)

0.107

0.131

Fines (\0.2 mm) (%)

27.6

Rigidity index (T/D)3 9 10-4

55.43

Lignin (%)

17.6

Hot water solubility (%)

9.3

18.1
7.99
18.1
2.75

Holocellulose (%)

86.3

77.8

1 % NaOH solubility (%)

29.9

19.3

Alcoholbenzene solubility (%)

Source: Law and Jiang (2001)

123

2.83

3.7

86.3

67.4

17.6

19.4

16.59

25.6

18.1

18.4

EFB strand

Frond whole

Frond strands

Acacia mangium

Trembling aspen

White Birch

Source: Wan Rosli and Law (2011)

78.2

77.8

76.45

71.8

22.6

45.7

18.8

Trunk strands

Holocellulose

Trunk

Lignin

41

43.6

49.6

45.8

29.2

Cellulose

24.1

20.2

17.4

25.9

18.8

Pentosans

3.6

3.7

4.8

7.33

5.2

2.83

1.2

9.8

Alcohol benzene solubility

Table 2 The chemical composition of oil palm compared with hard wood and soft wood

19.1

19.3

16.4

36.4

29.9

19.5

40.2

1 % NaOH Sol

2.8

2.75

6.16

17.5

9.3

2.5

14.2

Hot water sol

0.33

0.31

4.9

3.81

1.63

2.5

Ash

Berzins (1966)

Berzins (1966)

Law and Wan Rosli (2000)

Hassan et al. (1991)

Jalil et al. (1991)

Law and Jiang (2001)

Khoo et al. (1991)

Husin et al. (1985)

References

Potential benefits and threat

123

P. Singh et al.

Empty fruit bunches represent about 9 % of the total solid waste production (Alam et al.
2008). To process the fruit bunches, the stalks and empty fruit bunches are separated. The
resulting mass is pressed again and leads to crude palm oil (CPO) and palm oil mill effluent
(POME). The press cake yields fiber, shell and kernels that can be used as raw material of
pulp and paper industry. POME contains methane and thus can be used as cattle feed.
Empty fruit bunches also other biomass residues from palm oil mills can be used as mulch
and organic fertilizer (Singh et al. 2011; Embrandiri et al. 2012).
The fronds are generated throughout cutting, and trunks are available during replantation. The fronds have high percentage of holocellulose and a-cellulose, the composition
being 83.5 and 49.8 %, respectively. This parameter is important to determine the suitability of fronds as raw material for papermaking (Ona et al. 2000). The frond strands are
less resinous when compared to those of wood, as the lower levels of extractives soluble in
benzene and alcohol are obtained. The frond strands have high ash content similar to those
of other non-timber fibers (Wanrosli et al. 2007), and it might put in an unusual mechanical
wear of processing equipments. The high silica content may perhaps lead to scaling in the
evaporator and recovery boiler. The increased level of silica and potassium in the black
liquor sent to the recovery system is a chief apprehension in pulping of frond strands
(Wanrosli et al. 2007). Wallis et al. (1996) reported that high hemicellulose content raises
the viscosity of the black liquor (Tappi.org 2001).
The potential of oil palm frond can be viewed from the facts that there are about 26.2
million tonnes of OPF readily available from the oil industry (Izzuddin 2008). Economical
conversion of this biomass into useful products requires efficient use of all components of
cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin (Perez et al. 2002). Hemicellulose is most easily
removed the three major biopolymers since it is an amorphous and branched polysaccharide (Paredes et al. 2008). Wanrosli et al. (2007) estimated that 30 million tonnes of
fibrous biomass can be made from empty fruit bunches, palm press fiber, fronds and trunks.
Among them, empty fruit bunches have the best prospects for profitable utilization as raw
material in the pulp and paper industry (Basiron et al. 2004). The oil palm trunk has not
been exploited for profit yet by industry and investors. The reason for this being this
biomass is not intricate with palm oil milling process as EFBs (Wan Rosli et al. 2004
2007).

4 Pulp and paper industry

Almost all the pulp and paper fiber resources are plant materials obtained from trees or
agricultural crops. These plant materials are harvested directly from wood, straw, bamboo,
or residuals from other manufacturing processes (wood chips from sawmills, bagasse fiber
from sugarcane processing, cotton linter, etc.), fibers recovered from recycled paper or
paperboard and second-hand cloth (Gupta 2007). Coniferous trees are called softwood
spruce, pine, fir, larch and hemlock and are desired for papermaking as their pulp makes
strong and thick paper. Deciduous trees on other hand are called hardwoods trees that are
eucalyptus, aspen and birch. With increasing demand for paper and improvements in pulp
processing technology, any species of tree can now be harvested for paper (Anon 2010).
The plundering forests by the timber industry have severe ecological consequences for the
nation and the world loss of wildlife and habitat, degradation of riparian ecosystem,
increase global warming, pollution of air and water, and disruption of local communities
and economies. With global fiber demand expected to increase yet another 32 % by the
year 2010, experts are wondering just where the material will come from. While we must

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Potential benefits and threat

focus on paper-use reduction strategies to limit paper production, the reality is that paper
will continue to need fiber. Reducing paper consumption levels through reduction reuse
and recycling strategies is crucial to preserving our forests (Mwaikambo 2006). Pulp
manufacturing starts with raw material preparation, which includes debarking, chipping,
beating and depithing the cellulosic pulp, using chemical and mechanical means (Anon
1998). The manufacturing of pulp for paper and cardboard employs mechanical (including
chemi and thermo mechanical) and chemical methods. In Malaysia, the paper producing
mills are by and large smaller in comparison with the standards of world industry as total
production capacity is merely 13,00,000 Tons/year. Malaysia has a total capacity of production of pulp and paper at over 1 million Tons/year and is a net importer of pulp and
paper.
The worlds first oil palm-based pulp and paper mill was set up by Forest Research
Institute Malaysia (FRIM) and Borneo Advanced Sdn. Bhd. (a pulp and paper manufacturer in Malaysia) in the year 2003 and is located in the East Malaysia (Sabah). In the paper
mill, empty fruit bunches are converted into pulp using the caustics soda technology
developed by FRIM. This new improvement is anticipated to reduce Malaysias dependence on imported pulp and paper products taking into consideration the large availability
of EFB throughout Malaysia as every 5 tonnes of EFB could produce a tonne of pulp (Shuit
et al. 2008).

5 Pulping from oil palm biomass an estimation

The palm oil industry is now at the stage of seeking more value-added products not only
from the oil and kernel but also its biomass. There is an ample opportunity to convert the
available lignocellulosic biomass residues from oil palm mills into pulp and paper, particleboard, medium density fiberboard and composites (Kamarudin et al. 1997).
Wood pulp is primary raw material for making paper and is obtained from either
chemical or mechanical method to isolate cellulose fibers from wood, husks or recovered
waste paper. Pulping is the first processing step in the paper industry, and the aim is to
remove lignin and hemicelluloses avoiding the cellulose decomposition. There are five
major steps in the conventional papermaking process: mechanical preparation of the wood
into wood chips, wood digestion (pulping) to form pulp, pulp whitening (bleaching), pulp
stock preparation and finally paper formation. Entire processes of pulp and paper industry
are very energy and water intensive in terms of the fresh water utilization (Pokhrel and
Viraraghavan 2004). Water consumption depends on the production process involved, and
it can get as high as 60 m3 t-1 paper produced in spite of the most modern and the best
available technologies (Thompson et al. 2001). Biopulping is the biological pretreatment of
using white rot fungus to metabolize the lignin in wood, rendering it soft for paper production (Rademacher 2004). Biopulping by introduction of certain lignocellulytic enzymes
at different stage of pulp manufacture prior to bio bleaching, allows substantial saving of
electrical power and decreases pollutants (Singh et al. 2010b).
5.1 Pulps from oil palm bunches
The chemical pulp of empty fruit bunches has been achieved successfully by bleaching
with a chlorine-free process to obtain brightness of 7580 %. The paper quality-obtained
chemical pulps of EFB are comparable to hardwood kraft pulp (KP). Totally, chlorine-free

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P. Singh et al.

(TCF) bleaching method can be applied commercially making EFB suitable as a raw
material of chemical pulp.
5.2 Pulps from oil pulp fronds
The research has indicated that the chemical composition of OPF fibers lies between that of
hardwoods and that of straws and grasses (Izzuddin 2008). OPF fibers can easily be pulped
using the chemical process, and producing pulp and paper of comparable properties than
most of the hardwoods pulps, Yusoff (1997) reported that 63 % yield and tensile strength
and tear indices of OPF were comparable with the softwood kraft. The acetosolv pulping of
frond chips produced pulps of 4550 % yield (Wan Rosli et al. 2010), zero span tensile
breaking length (83 km), sheet density (0.57 g cm-3), tensile index (48Nm/g) and tear
index (5.4mN m2 g-1). Kamishima et al. (1990) studied that CTMP of oil palm fronds
gave a pulp yield of 80 % yield reduced to 55 % when pretreated with alkali prior to
refining. Hassan et al. (1991) reported that the removal of parenchyma cells improved
brightness in the 2040 % range. The growth in pulp and paper industry in Malaysia
highlights the potential of using the 26.2 million tonnes of oil palm frond (OPF) for pulp
and paper production (Izzuddin 2008).
Recycling oil palm biomass residues from mills is one method that can be done to
reduce the environmental pollution. The present-day production of paper and pulp from
palm waste is the best way to curb the green house gases. The old papers can also be
recycled and used to make new ones that can be used further for casing, printing and
manufacturing (Anon 2001). Wood fibers are the main raw material used for the production
of pulp and paper. The worlds wood pulp production amounted to 166.3 million tonnes in
2001 as compared to recovered fiber pulp of 19.8 million tonnes (Izzuddin 2008).
Oil palm biomass has shown potential to be used as a raw material for paper and
paperboard production. Since the 1980s, the suitability of this raw material for papermaking has been explored using a variety of pulping methods (Choon and Wan 1991;
Kamarudin et al. 1991, 1997). Mostly the studies used oil palm trunks and less focus have
been paid to the empty fruit bunches (EFB), though they are the most important fibrous
material left in the palm oil mill after the removal of oil fruit (seeds) from fruit bunches for
oil extraction. Sulaiman et al. (2011) investigated the production of pulp from oil palm
trunk (OPT) using Aspergillus species and white rot fungi. Fungal growth on the chips was
measured in radial extension of the mycelium. The OPT chips were exposed to fungi
between 9 and 36 days, and then, the chips were pulped mechanically. The pulp yield,
screened pulp yield, kappa number and strength of the paper increased. Pulp yield and
screened pulp yield decreased as the exposure time to microorganism increased; however,
the kappa number became lower after longer exposure. The micro morphological structure
of wood chips and pulp produced were analyzed using scanning electron microscopy. It
was found that these fungal species were well colonized in OPT chips especially in vessel
elements. The reaction time and fungal species were in general relative to the properties
and yield of the resultant pulps.
After the pulping operation, the pulp is often dark in color. For newsprint production,
the pulp should have a brightness of 6065 % (Biermann 1996). Bleach makes pulp white
and brighter to the eye. Bleaching is the chemical process applied to the pulp to increase its
brightness through lignin removal. Pulp brightness is one of the parameters used to observe
bleaching progress. An unbleached pulp is colored due to the absorbance of visible light by
the presence of residual lignin and highly colored substances. There are more than ten
types of bleaching chemicals. Lignin removal is achieved using chlorine, hypochlorite,

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Potential benefits and threat

chlorine dioxide, oxygen or ozone (Reeve 1996). Different types of bleaching chemicals,
stages and sequences are used in producing different degree of pulp brightness and will
affect the pulp and paper properties. Beating pulp is one of the most important processes in
papermaking. It refers to a mechanical treatment given to pulp fibers during their preparation for papermaking. The principle objective of beating is to optimize fiber properties.
The modifications of the pulp fibers are dependent on pulp quality, process conditions and
running conditions of the equipment (Levlin and Jousimaa 1988).

6 Benefits and threats associated with oil palm biomass utilization

Currently, the global annual production of pulp and paper board is 300 million tonnes
(www.tappi.org/paperu). By 2020, the demand for paper is expected to rise by 77 %
(printnetinc.com). The high growth in paper consumption will definitely lead to increase in
fiber demand from industries, which is very much dependent on the natural forests for the
supply of raw materials. Conventionally over 45 % of the worlds annual commercial
timber chopped is used for making pulp, paper and board Dudley (1995). The proportion
exceeds 50 % in Europe, as forests are managed and logged primarily for pulp. Pulp is also
the output from some of the world most intensively managed monoculture timber plantations, which have sometimes themselves been established in the place of native forests. A
few countries such as India and Malaysia are, on the other hand, moving away from wood
use in paper production. These plantations have negative impacts on biodiversity and the
environment destroying the majority of non-timber uses of forests, which are often very
crucial to local people.
In Malaysian perspective, apart from lavatory and tissue paper, large amount of the
paper products are imported (Izzuddin 2008). In 1996, the country produced 5,000 tonnes
of newsprint, and its consumption was 3, 25,000 tonnes (Izzuddin 2008). The paper and
paper board industry in Malaysia has grown up from 0.05 million tonnes in 1985 to 0.95
million tonnes in 2005 (Thang 2009). In order to address the above negative impacts and
find a way toward better outcome, oil palm biomass can be an alternative. The vast
quantity of biomass available is also a potential revenue generator, and it can be converted
into value-added products (Hashim et al. 2011).
Non-timber plant materials consumption at a time causes environmental damage, for
example loss of natural bamboo forests in northern India. Pulping also releases numerous
pollutants, which may be organic in nature and thus causes eutrophication (Sumathi and
Hung 2006). A range of aluminum salts and sulfur dioxide are constantly added in water
through pulping. The mechanical and chemical pulping methods can equally cause pollution (Dudley 1995). Pollutants cover important impacts on freshwater and marine ecosystems near pulp mills, including causing serious damage to fisheries. Paper companies
insist that they plant as many new plants as they chop down, but the environmentalists
argue that the newly grown trees are younger and smaller than what have been removed,
therefore cannot replace the value of older trees. Efforts to recycle used paper (especially
newspapers) have been effective in at least partially mitigating the need for destruction of
woodlands, and recycled paper is now an important ingredient in many types of paper
production (Anon 2011). The chemicals used in paper manufacture, including dyes, inks,
bleach and sizing, also are harmful to the surroundings when they are released into water
supplies. The industry has sometimes with government prompting, cleared up a large
amount of pollution and federal requirements, now demands pollution-free paper production. The cost of such clean-up efforts is passed on to the consumer as nearly all the

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P. Singh et al.

waste ends up in landfill sites or other paper waste is incinerated. This recovers the energy
contained in the plant material, but can cause serious pollution. It also means that most of
the potential carbon sequestration effects of pulp plantations are only of interim nature.
Paper recycling offers savings in terms of energy and resources though it has some
associated environmental costs of its own, such as pollution from deinking processes. But
recycling is failing to keep pace with the rapid increase in paper demand in many countries.
Industrial production without adequate regard to environmental impacts has led to increase
in pollution of air, water, soil degradation and large-scale global impacts such as acid rain,
global warming and ozone depletion. To create more sustainable means of production,
there must be a shift in attitudes toward proactive waste management practices moving
away from control toward prevention. A preventive approach must be applied in all
industrial sectors. The unsoiled production is a practical method for protecting the human
and the environmental health and supporting the goal of sustainability (Avsar and Demirer
2006).
The paper industrys activities also have many straight and moderate impacts. These
include loss and degradation of forests that causes climate change, destruction of habitat
for plant and animal species, pollution of air and water with toxic chemicals such as
mercury and dioxins, etc. and production of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Large
extent of biomass by-products (about 5 times the palm oil production) is produced in the
palm oil production processes that are scarcely used for adding value to the production
chain. The existing palm oil production system is generally seen as unsustainable owing to
detrimental effects on biodiversity such as loss of virgin forests and greenhouse gas
emissions coupled with current waste disposal methods. Using palm oil biomass as raw
material in pulp and paper industry will not only reduce the pressure on forest for resource,
and on the other hand, it will solve the waste disposal problem in oil palm industry.
Indirectly it will be helpful in restoring the biodiversity thus preventing the environment
degradation.

7 Future prospects
The abundant land and an ideal climate have resulted in vast oil palm plantations in
Indonesia and Malaysia but have also caused widespread destruction of tropical rainforests
threatening the wildlife (Brown and Jacobson 2005). As the demand for palm oil is projected to be doubled by 2030 and will triple by 2050 in comparison with the year 2000,
therefore to achieve that nearly 1,160 new square miles of oil palm trees have to be planted
for the next 20 years (McDowell Bomani et al. 2009). Pulp and paper industry is believed
to be one of the most polluting industries in the world (Thompson et al. 2001; Sumathi and
Hung 2006; Singh et al. 2010b).
According to Singh et al. (2010b), biopulping can be used an alternative method to the
traditional pulping process. Biopulping process uses fungi species that are known to be
able to degrade wood as well as its lignin constituents. Among these species, white rot
fungi are the most efficient biodegrader. The fungus is a non-sporulating and selective
lignin degrader. Fungi colonizes either on living or dead wood and decomposes all wood
polymers together with lignin and extractives promising its high potential to be used in
biopulping (Singh et al. 2010a). Biopulping might play a significant role in maintaining
cleaner environment as white rot fungal pretreatment generates lignolytic enzymes naturally and they also have vast potential process. Added advantage is that by reducing the
cooking time, this process consequently consumes lesser energy and also there will be a

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significant rise in paper strength (Singh et al. 2010b). There are also few drawbacks of
biopulping, and firstly the pretreatment takes a long time of nearly 2 weeks and the pulps
are darker in color that makes the paper darker. The process of biopulping reduces the
utilization of chemical in pulping industry and helps in reducing the environmental hazard
caused by normal pulping. The use of microorganisms or their enzymes to improve deinking of recycled fibers and the release of toners from office wastes is another promising
area that is currently under research. Biotransformation of lignocellulosic biomass into
alternative fuels obtaining ethanol as alternative fuel using cellulose and lignocellulosic
residues as a raw material has been strongly considered, especially after the fossil fuel
crisis (Perez et al. 2002). All over the world, the conversion of starch from corn and other
crops into ethanol is one of the major scale applications of biotechnology. Ethanol blended
with gasoline (10:90) reduces carbon monoxide emissions. Lignocellulosic biomass offers
a feedstock lower in price than starch. Over the last 20 years, much progress has been
made in the enzymatic conversion of lignocelluloses into ethanol, and the price of this
product has dropped so much that nowadays ethanol can compete with gasoline. The
transformation of lignocellulose into ethanol is completed in two steps: hydrolysis of the
polymer, delignification to liberate cellulose and hemicelluloses from their complex with
lignin, and depolymerization of carbohydrate polymer to produce free sugars and fermentation to ethanol using pentoses and hexoses liberated in the first step. In conventional
processes, lignins present in the raw materials and releasing fermentable sugars are
eliminated by chemical and/or thermic pre-treatment followed by enzymatic/acidic
hydrolysis. However, biological treatments have been proposed either to replace the
physicochemical treatment or for detoxification or specific removal of inhibitors prior to
fermentation. The fore-mentioned white rot fungi or other ligninolytic microorganisms
including Streptomyces can achieve delignification Lee (1997).
The main advantages of biological delignification include mild reaction conditions,
higher product yields, fewer side reactions and less energy demand. An attractive alternative to the two-step bioconversion is simultaneous saccharification and fermentation.
Biopulping is a sustainable pulping process having the potential to be an environmentally
kind means of improving both the economics of pulp production and the quality of pulp
produced (Breen and Singleton 1999). Comparing to chemical pulping, biopulping produces lower yield but uses only a small amount of chemicals without any environmental
hazard. The pulp and paper industry competes in a global marketplace, where energy and
material costs determine profitability. Manufacturing pulp utilizes a lot of chemicals as
well electrical energy (Singh et al. 2010b). As biopulping process reduced the cooking time
thus consumption of energy decreases and also there is a significant rise in paper strength.
The industrial application of biopulping can be successfully established to save chemicals
and to augment pulp quality (Singh et al. 2010b).

8 Conclusions and implications

The main focus of the paper is to provide an overview of the recent advances of pulping
using oil palm biomass. The timber production feeds the wood pulp industry for paper and
plywood, and due to vast industrial expansion of oil palm tree plantation, there is a threat
of forest fragmentation and deforestation. Pulp and paper manufacturing involves the
conversion of fibers, usually from wood but also from other plants, into pulp and further
into a wide range of products like paper, paperboard and packaging material. The biopulping process proves to be sustainable and cost economic effective and has health

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P. Singh et al.

benefits. More than any other industries, it plays an important role in sustainable development since its principal raw material wood fibers are renewable. It provides a model of
how a resource can be managed to meet societys current and future needs. The total
plantation area in the world is increasing continuously. Oil palm trunk fiber and empty
fruit-bunch (EFB) fiber are two important types of fibrous materials left during the periodic
replanting and pruning. If we use them in biopulping process, the difficulty of waste
discard can be solved. Other tree species can also be used in biopulping thus reducing
monoculture and keeping the biodiversity conserved. The drawbacks are the effects of
dissimilar components of fiber cell-wall structure on either biopulping or the developments
of pulp properties that are not well known in industrial processes. If we use these as a raw
material in pulp and paper industry, we can manufacture good-quality paper with some
improvement in technology and in turn can check the biodiversity loss through monoculture plantations as it will be environment affable. In summary, there are several
important processes that must take place in oil palm growing areas in order to address the
above negative impacts and find a way toward better outcomes.
Acknowledgments The authors are thankful to Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang, Malaysia for the
fellowship of Ms. Pooja Singh.

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