Social Shaping of

Malaysian National Biomass Agenda:

Building the Value Added Products

from an Abundance of Oil Palm Biomass

Boon Cheong Chew and Syaiful Rizal HamidBoon Cheong Chew and Syaiful Rizal Hamid

bcchew@utem.edu.my syaiful@utem.edu.my

Faculty of Technology Management and Technopreneurship

University of Technical Malaysia Melaka

Hang Tuah Jaya

76100 Durain Tunggal

Melaka

Introduction

The NBS (2011) is to determine how Malaysia can

develop new biomass sectors with the aim of

gaining more revenue from oil palm industry

through the utilisation of the associated biomass, inthrough the utilisation of the associated biomass, in

order to create higher value-added economic

activities (downstream) that contribute towards:

(a) Malaysia’s gross national income

(b) High value jobs

Our National Comparative Advantage

1. Malaysia’s oil palm plantations with the total

acreage has grown to 4.85 million hectares in

2010 (NBS, 2011).

2. Malaysia is the world’s second largest producer2. Malaysia is the world’s second largest producer

and the world’s largest exporter of crude palm oil

(NBS, 2011).

Our National Comparative Advantage

3. Malaysia’s oil palm industry is the 4th largest

contributor to the nation’s, RM50billion of GNI

(MPOB, 2011).

4. It is estimated that Malaysia could benefit4. It is estimated that Malaysia could benefit

from an additional RM30billion contribution to

the GNI by utilising the oil palm biomass, which

identified as part of the National Key Economic

Area.

Figure 1: Upstream and downstream of oil palm industry

Upstream-The upstream activities have become hierarchically

segmented.

-Mainly producing palm oil for food, medicine and consumer

products.

-This marks out a degree of autonomy between the -This marks out a degree of autonomy between the

development of these different components of the oil palm

production system at these upstream activities, whereby

interaction between each set of components is encouraged

and sustained until today.

Downstream:

-currently attracting research.

-new technologies are under research because they are

perceived importance for our national strategies.

-the importance of innofusion would focus upon a nexus

between diverse players: not only those involved in oil palm

supply, but also various organisations (public sectors,

research laboratories, IoHL, associated private sectors,

potential users etc all are “sateliting” on the oil palm

industry downstream, to create value added products from

oil palm biomass.

Abundance of Oil Palm Biomass

-An increase in planted area for oil palm was the

main driver of biomass volume growth.

-The forecasted growth will be influenced by a

combination of plantation expansion and oil palm combination of plantation expansion and oil palm

fresh fruit bunch yield improvement, resulted from

an effective plantation management, crop

materials’ scientific innovation and efficient

replanting of mature plantations.

Five Types of Oil Palm Biomass(a) oil palm fronds

-Available throughout the year in the plantations as they are regularly

cut during harvesting of fresh fruit bunches and pruning of the palm

trees.

(b) trunks

- Available in the plantations (at the end of plantation lifecycle)- Available in the plantations (at the end of plantation lifecycle)

(c) empty fruit bunches

-remain after the removal of the palm fruits from the fruit bunches.

(d) palm kernel

(e) shells and mesocarp fibre. The NBS (2011)

*palm kernel, mesocarp fibre and shells are remained after the

extraction of crude palm oil at mills.

The Quantity of Biomass

Hence, most of the solid biomass is found in the

plantations (as fronds and trunks) account for

75% of the biomass volume, while the remaining

25% is generated in the mills during the 25% is generated in the mills during the

extraction of palm oil. (NBS, 2011).

The Reality Checking

-The pace of innovation in oil palm downstream

activities is coupled with the need to maintain inter-

operability between the offerings of different

players. players.

-The huge R&D costs of new products are coupled

with massive potential economies of scale that oil

palm biomass will bring.

The Reality Checking…

-The downstream opportunities has to be

efficiency managed to ensure sustainability

growth in this sector.

-Pellet..can we put higher value on the biomass, -Pellet..can we put higher value on the biomass,

besides Pellet?

Our Technologies at Downstream

-The most up-to-date engineering research on value-

added biomass products, where some of the works

have attended to flows of technological information

between technologists and industry players in the

innovation process, highlighting the importance of innovation process, highlighting the importance of

collaborative networks (joint/collaborative R&D).

-The R&D is ongoing to search for technological

efficiency driven techniques, in order to boost the

quality of value-added biomass and to attain speed of

delivery.

Our Technology at Downstream…

-We understand that, different biomass products have

different risk-return profiles which are largely determined by

our capacity of the production technologies and global

demand.

-Different conversion technologies need to be tested, then -Different conversion technologies need to be tested, then

pilot plants and leading up to commercial scale plant

establishment. This could be done through various channels

technology transfer advocated by Khalil (2000)

*International technology transfer, regional technology transfer, cross-industry/cross

sector technology transfer, interfirm technology transfer, intrafirm technology transfer.

Conclusion

-Research into the implementation of value added on palm

oil downstream biomass has uncovered a wide range of

social factors shaping the design of these technologies.

-These factors include the socioeconomic and political

objectives of the policy makers, industry players; as well as objectives of the policy makers, industry players; as well as

the immediate features of the process, while in the broader

context, including the industrial relations system and

national culture (vision and mission), global agenda (green

and sustainable) have all been shown to be significant.

Recommendation

•Historically, the technological change in the industry

involves a typically painful learning process that has, to

date, been repeated for each new technical offering as it

emerges (Senker 1987).

•This is because policy makers, industry players and other •This is because policy makers, industry players and other

institutions have consistently underestimated the

difficulty of implementing these new technologies, and

the need to invest in developing these technologies with

training required and subsequent supporting institutions

needed.

Recommendation

•Hence, to achieve full potential of oil palm biomass will require

significant coordination and cooperation among stakeholders. In order

to materialise this opportunity, the Malaysian Government must ensure

that the right regulatory framework and incentive package are

instituted. This will be achieved through:

(a) supporting the formation of cooperatives among plantation owners

by adopting new policies which could reduce the risks of business by adopting new policies which could reduce the risks of business

partnering.

(b) establish the new entry point projects and the expansion of the

scope of a few existing projects under the palm oil NKEA.

(c ) to fund the related R&D projects of biofuels and biobased chemicals.

This could catalyse both the public and private sectors investments.

Recommendation

•Consequently, the institution created along the value chain

will playing their respective functions in transforming the

landscape of the palm oil biomass industry, to simulate

innovative activities in economies on a national scale.

•The linkages among all related institutions help in

transmitting information flow and allocate both roles and transmitting information flow and allocate both roles and

responsibilities that ought to be played.

•The next stage is to determine the learning innovation and to

the extend which R&D and future production strategies could

be integrated and materialised along the innofusion process.

Source

• Please acknowledge the authors:

Chew, B.C. and Hamid, S.R. 2012. Social

Shaping of Malaysian National Biomass Agenda:Shaping of Malaysian National Biomass Agenda:

Building the Value Added Products from an

Abundance of Oil Palm Biomass. In International

Conference on Biomass for Biofuels and Value-

Added Products (ICBBVAP) 2012. Kuala Lumpur,

Malaysia 23-24 October 2012.

Contact1. Boon Cheong Chew

Google BCChew for LinkedIn and some of his work

email: bcchew@email.com

My primary research interest:

(a) Renewable energy development and deployment.

(b) Clean technologies innovation and implementation.

2. Syaiful Rizal Hamid

Syaiful@utem.edu.my

Syaiful’s primary research interest:

(a) Quality Management and Technology Management

(b) Design Manufacturing