Journal of Food Engineering 143 (2014) 123131

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Journal of Food Engineering

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jfoodeng

Pre-treatment of oil palm fruits: A review

Christine Jamie Vincent, Rosnah Shamsudin , Azhari Samsu Baharuddin
Process & Food Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 8 November 2013
Received in revised form 15 May 2014
Accepted 13 June 2014
Available online 8 July 2014
Keywords:
Sterilization
Palm oil
Dry-heating
Microwave-heating
Continuous sterilizer

a b s t r a c t
The sterilization process in the oil palm mill is a crucial step in extracting and yielding good quality oil.
However, this process requires a vast amount of steam to be released to the atmosphere and with that,
several attempts in replacing the current steaming sterilization process by means of dry(oven) heating,
microwave heating and the invention of a continuous sterilizer were carried out by researchers to provide
a greener technology for this purpose. This paper reviewed among the methods and past invention proposed and it can be concluded that the oil yield and the quality depend very much on two major factors,
that is the pre-processing conditions and the sterilization and extraction methods used. Bunch strippability is enhanced through the use of continuous sterilizers of low temperature subjected to the fruits.
Thorough comparison studies should be done on the current sterilization method and the new techniques
introduced since both the current and new methods gave equally good benets.
2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

2. Current method of oil palm processing in mills

Palm oil is an edible, highly saturated vegetable oil that is commonly and abundantly used as cooking ingredient, especially in the
food processing industries in Africa, Southeast Asia and in certain
regions of Brazil. It is attained from the oil palm fruits mesocarp
(Hadi et al., 2009), primarily the African oil palm Elaeis guineensis
and a lesser extent from the Elaeis oleifera, an American oil palm
and the Attalea maripa, a maripa palm. Babatunde and Okoli
(1988) stated in their study that the oil palm fruit is a drupe with
a eshy outer part called mesocarp that surrounds a hard core
called palm nut. They also added that the fruits are prolate spheroid in shape and has a variation of 2550 mm in length and about
1938 mm in diameter.
Palm oil has the color of a rich, deep red which is said to be
derived from its rich carotenoid contents, which are known as pigments often found in plants and animals. Palm oil is a viscous
semi-solid and a solid fat in temperate climate because the major
components of its glycerides are the saturated fatty acid palmitic.
The viscosity of oil in room temperature (25 C) is 77.19 mPa s
and during the sterilization process (121 C) is usually in the range
of 4.95.1 mPa s (Anonymous, 2014). Besides that, there is also oil
that is derived from the kernel of the same fruit, which is known as
the palm kernel oil and it contributes about 10% of the quantity of
palm oil produced.

In the Palm Oil industry, the palm oil is usually obtained by

means of a string of processes in the mill that involves mechanical
systems. There are many operation units in a typical mill. In summary, oil palm processing in mill involves the reception of fresh
fruit bunches from the plantations, sterilizing and threshing of
the bunches to free the palm fruits, digesting and mashing of the
fruits and pressing out the crude palm oil, clarication, purication, drying and storage. For the kernel line, there are steps such
as nut/ber separation, nut conditioning and cracking, cracked
mixture separation, kernel drying and storage (Poku, 2002). Kernel
crushing facilities often existed in some integrated plants for the
extraction of the crude palm kernel oil, which are then further treated to purify and to dry it for storage and export.

Corresponding author. Tel./fax: +60 389466366.

E-mail address: rosnahs@upm.edu.my (R. Shamsudin).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jfoodeng.2014.06.022
0260-8774/ 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

2.1. The sterilization process

The rst step in the sequence of processes to extract the oil in
palm oil mill is the sterilization process, which is a heat pretreatment process subjected to the fruits. Pre-treatment refers to
the solubilization and separation of one or more of the four major
components of biomass-hemicellulose, cellulose, lignin and extractives: to make the remaining solid biomass more accessible to further chemical and biological treatment (Graf and Koehler, 2000).
Pre-treatments are sometimes crucial in order to make material
handling easier through subsequent processing steps. The sterilization process functions in supplying heat for fruits softening and
encourage loosening and easier detachment of the fruits from fresh

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C.J. Vincent et al. / Journal of Food Engineering 143 (2014) 123131

fruit bunch (FFB) stalks, prevents the rise of Free Fatty Acids (FFA) in
the oil by inactivating the enzyme reaction especially since a study
by Ngando-Ebongue et al. (2006) has also stated that palm mesocarp is one of the plant tissues that contain the highest amount of
lipase, and also condition the nuts in the following cracking process
(Vijaya et al., 2010; Olie and Tjeng, 1974; Mongana Report, 1955).
Malaysian Palm Oil Association (MPOA) has established that the
Free Fatty Acid (FFA) content in Crude Palm Oil (CPO) for trading
purpose must not exceed 5% (Noraini and Siew, 1990). NgandoEbongue et al. (2006) clearly stated in his study that it is of utmost
importance that the fruits be heated immediately after harvest to
inactivate lipase activity. According to another study by
Sambanthanmurthi et al. (1991), low temperature is one of the
other main factors that contributes to the in situ lipase activity
of the fruit and therefore supports the fact that heat pre-treatment
plays a very important role not only by increasing the freedom of
the nut from the bers but also as mentioned by Kandiah et al.
(1992) that when heat penetrates into the pericarp of the fruitlets,
it works in the inactivation of lipase enzyme that has the tendency
to disrupt the quality of the palm fruits.
On the other hand, Poku (2002) described that the Free Fatty
Acid (FFA) content of the oil in a fresh ripe and un-bruised fruit
is below 0.3%. However, he also mentioned that the exocarp of
the ripe fruit will turn soft and is prone to be attacked by lipolytic
enzymes, giving rise to the FFA of the oil through hydrolysis, especially at the base when the fruit becomes detached from the bunch.
Research has also shown that the FFA in the damaged area of the
fruit tends to increase rapidly when it is bruised (Rajanaidu and
Tan, 1983). Therefore, depending on how bad the bruising is, there
is a great variety in the composition and quality within the bunch.
Numerous studies are also done in research centers to study the
various types of oil produced from these breeds, and from different
parts of the fruitlets, mainly the mesocarp and the kernel.
The total weight and the maturity of the fresh fruit bunch (FFB)
is what usually denes the sterilization cycle. With the use of saturated steam at 40 psi (140 C) for 7590 min (Sivasothy, 2000;
Chow and Ma, 2007), the sterilization process is currently carried
out in batches (Let, 1995; Sivasothy, 2000) to deactivate the biological factors that are mainly responsible for the deterioration of the
oil quality (Let, 1995). Heat also encourages the breaking up of the
oil bearing cells of the fruit mesocarp to release the oil during the
digestion process (Mahidin, 1998). Inadequate sterilization affects
the subsequent milling processing stages adversely.
However, Hadi et al. (2012) mentioned in his studies that, to
ensure complete heating up till the inner layers of the bulky fresh
fruit bunches (FFB), lengthy steaming period and vast quantities of
steam used is compulsory. The batch process of the sterilization
process is slow and inefcient because much heat is used to heat
up the sterilizer cage, also absorbing large portion of the manpower in the mill (Sivasothy, 2005). Tan et al. (1999) also claimed
that there were also other losses reported in association with a
steam heating process. Latest development of new sterilization
processes focuses on producing a continuous sterilization process
(Sivasothy et al., 1993; Loh, 1994; Chow and Ma, 2001). Apart from
that, it was also observed in a study by Ma (1999), that large
amount of steam used is released during the sterilization process,
while a portion of the steam is released as sterilizer condensate,
forming parts of the Palm Oil Mill Efuent (POME). Stringent
requirements of the discharge standards by the Malaysian Department of Environment (DOE) require complicated and rigorous
treatment of the discharge.
Past studies on the inventions of continuous sterilizers, sterilization by means of microwave and oven heating were studied in
order to further improve the effectiveness of the sterilization process by replacing the steaming method. The huge avail of the technology used in a conventional palm oil mill can be accredited to the

compendious research that was carried out in Congo in the 1950s

as reported in the Mongana Report (1955). However, to date, there
is still no signicant technology or modern process in relation to
the oil extraction process that has been practiced since the
1960s. As the years passed by, there is the need for the Malaysian
palm oil industry to be on par to cater to new challenges, including
a much strict environmental protocols, labor scarcity and competition from other palm oil producing countries. The palm oil industry
in Malaysia is highly reliant on immigrant workers due to the acute
labor shortage (Sivasothy et al., 2006).
3. Methods of pre-treatment to replace the sterilization process
There are various exploratory studies by researchers on the
attempt to replace the currently practice sterilization process by
means of steaming in oil palm mill, such as the invention of a continuous sterilizer, as well as, sterilization by means of microwave
and dry (oven) heating with the combination of a solvent extraction method to extract the oil from the palm mesocarp.
3.1. Continuous sterilizers
In the conventional milling process, bunches are cooked in
batches at 40 psig steam for a period of 7090 min (Sivasothy
et al., 2005). The process hinders oil quality deterioration owing
to the biological enzymatic factors and it also helps fruits stripping
from bunch stalks and the oil and kernel extraction (Mongana
Report, 1955). Continuous processing for batch/conventional sterilization is hard to achieve due to the use of high pressure steam with
alternating pressure discharges which is paramount to accomplish
good sterilization. Numerous techniques have been proposed for a
continuous sterilization system (Mongana Report, 1955;
Sivasothy et al., 1993; Loh, 1994; Olie and Tjeng, 1974) but none
has proven to be 100% effective and at the same time being economically viable. However, there are recent efforts on converting the
palm oil milling technology and this new process was pioneered
by the Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB) (Sivasothy et al., 2006).
Fig. 1 illustrates the latest invention of a continuous sterilization
process system. Laboratory-scale and pilot-scale studies (Sivasothy
and Rohaya, 2000; Sivasothy et al., 2000, 2002, 2005) established
the mechanical and economic viability of the new process and later
on, a commercial-scale system was constructed in the Malaysian
Palm Oil Board (MPOB) Palm Oil Mill Technology Centre (POMTEC)
located in Labu. Based on the study of a continuous sterilization
process by Sivasothy et al. (2006), the rst step involves the use
of a double-roll crusher to distort the closed-knit arrangement of
the spikelets in bunches. In a previous study by Sivasothy et al.
(2005) on the same subject, they inferred that usage of the double-roll crusher provides advantages such as minimal to zero nut
breakage, user-friendly design, low investment, operating and
maintenance cost, good power consumption and the ability to handle bunches of all kinds. The design of the continuous sterilizer
applies the use of forward and return paths conveyors to transport
the bunches from the crusher to the sterilizer and then discharge
(Sivasothy et al., 2005). This allows for an even user-friendlier
design as the whole system is a complete combination process of
crushing the bunches and sterilizing and at the same time reduces
vast manual labor that is needed in the batch sterilization process
to transport the cages of fruit bunches to and from the sterilizer
(Sivasothy et al., 1993). Then, with the use of a double-deck scraper
conveyor of none multiple-peak cycles, the bunches are heated
while being conveyed at low pressure (atmospheric pressure) and
inside an enclosed vessel (as shown in Fig. 1) called the continuous
sterilization chamber, to facilitate continuous processing. The use
of low pressure and without the use of multiple-peak cycles in

C.J. Vincent et al. / Journal of Food Engineering 143 (2014) 123131

125

Rotary valve
Continuous sterilizer
Bunch
crusher

Feed conveyor

Rotary valve

Discharge conveyor

Fig. 1. The experimental continuous sterilization system. Source: Sivasothy et al. (2006).

the continuous sterilization system (Sivasothy et al., 2005) assures

that no sudden wide uctuations in steam demand would occur
(Sivasothy et al., 1993), thus a much better power consumption.
The bunches are further heated using discharged steam upon leaving the chamber. The use of rotary, gate and ap valves through
which the bunches enter and leave the sterilization chamber is
meant to minimize steam loss.
One of the main advantages of a continuous sterilization system
is the ability to avoid the use of the many current equipment used
in batch sterilization, such as sterilizer cages, rail tracks, overhead
cranes, tippers, transfer carriages and tractors (Sivasothy et al.,
2006). This allows for a signicant reduction noted in the maintenance an investment cost of the loading ramp to the stripper section of the mill, usually ranging from RM 1.30 to RM 2.50 per ton
of the FFB (Sivasothy et al., 2006). Another advantage is the reduction in labor and manpower.
Moreover, Sivasothy et al. (2006) has also mentioned in one of
the advantages of a mill utilizing the continuous sterilization process enables lesser oscillations in the boiler pressure and back
pressure than in a conventional mill. They added that minimization of uctuations in the steam pressure and electrical voltage
and frequency is due to the non-application of the multiple peak
sterilization cycles, thus allowing approximately constant steam
input demand. Such uctuations yield problems such as loss in
productivity, low quality product and output reduction.
In addition to that, in a conventional mill, sterilized bunches are
rst fed to a hopper and subsequently into the stripping drum.
Wide uctuations often occur at the rate at which the bunches
are fed to the stripping drum, and this creates problem to the stripper and the rest of the milling process (Sivasothy et al., 2006).
Sivasothy et al. (2006) stated that wide uctuations in ow results
in a less effective digestion process as there is variations in the
level of fruits available in the digester and it also the disrupts the
effectiveness of nut/ber separation in the depericarper column.
Moreover, the existence of wide uctuations averts the possibility
of manpower reduction since it requires close process supervision
to prevent uctuations occurrence that may lead to other disturbances (Sivasothy et al., 2006). On the other hand, the last screw
press in a multiple screw press used in most palm oil mills is often
operated irregularly, thus making pressing less productive. It will
also be challenging to accurately control the quantity of water
added to the press liquor to optimize the oil/sludge separation during clarication.
3.2. Dry-heating
One of the methods suggested and studied for the possibility of
replacing the conventional steaming method of sterilization of the
fruits is by means of dry heating. A study by Chow and Ma (2007)

stated that dry heating of palm fruits is capable of attaining the

objectives of the conventional steam sterilization. However, it
was also stated that this only works for the outer layer of the fruits
and that the fruits are prone to be damaged when heating is prolonged. Hadi et al. (2012), on the other hand, has brought a new
level of oil extraction by means of dry heating and solvent extraction of the oil palm fruits. This is to replace the screw pressing process that is carried out in a conventional palm oil milling process.
A review on oil extraction technology done by Ibrahim and
Onwualu (2005) claimed that oil extraction is an oil recovering
process from oil-bearing agricultural products from the likes of oilseeds (cotton, castor, sunower, etc.), nuts (coconut, groundnut,
sheanut, etc.) and mesocarps of fruits (oil palm), through manual,
mechanical or chemical (solvent) extraction. Oil extraction from
oil-bearing products could be done in two major ways, which are
the traditional and improved methods. The traditional method
consists of preliminary processing and hand pressing. Improved
method, on the other hand, consists of chemical extraction and
mechanical expression. Chemical extraction requires the use of
organic solvents to recover the oil from the products while
mechanical method employs the use of devices such as screw
and hydraulic presses as a mean of applying the pressure to
already pre-treated products (Gunstone and Norris, 1983). The
palm oil extraction from palm fruits in mills is currently carried
out using the screw press technology that is done after the steam
sterilization process is complete (Nik Norulaini et al., 2007). However, Nik Norulaini et al. (2007) reported that this process is said to
still leave behind about 3% residual oil per fruit in the fruit ber,
which gives a signicant amount of oil loss when accumulated,
aside from a vast consumption of water used that is eventually
exhausted to the atmosphere as Palm Oil Mill Efuent (POME)
and is said to be hazardous to the environment.
An alternative method to solve the problem of the hazardous
POME through the use of microwave and oven to heat treat the
fruits requires the solvent extraction method to extract the oil from
these pre-treated fruitlets. The solvent extraction method involves
the use of organic solvents such as straight chain hydrocarbons,
chlorinated hydrocarbons, alcohols and ketones, to recover the oil
from the sources. (Ibrahim and Onwualu, 2005). Solvent extraction
has been practiced in the extraction of oil from soybeans, sunower
seeds, rapeseed, corn and palm kernels, as well as pressed palm
ber (Stein and Glaser, 1976). In palm oil industry, the solvent
extraction and the supercritical uid extraction method are current
attempts used to recover the residue oil from palm-pressed ber
(Choo et al., 1996; Lau et al., 2006 and de Franca and Meireles,
2000). In addition to that, it was found in the study by Hadi et al.
(2012), that the combination of dry heating and solvent extraction
is able to reduce the lengthy sterilization time as well as increasing
the oil yield. Hadi et al. (2012) had conducted his study on the

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C.J. Vincent et al. / Journal of Food Engineering 143 (2014) 123131

dry-heating of palm oil fruits in order to replace steaming as a

method of sterilization was conducted with a National NN-6850
oven with heating time that was varied from 1- and 5 min.
Researchers (Norris, 1964; Ward, 1976; Khan and Hanna, 1983;
Adekola, 1991) reported that putting aside whichever methods
are employed, the yields and oil quality extracted depends on the
content adjustment, heating time, pressure application and operating temperature. As heating duration is the key to a successful sterilization process by oven heating, Hadi et al. (2012) concluded in his
study that the dry-heated fruits for the period of 3 min was capable
of preventing the rise of FFA, encourage a loosening of the nut from
its shell and preserving the state of the kernel. Dry heating also
encourages the elimination of water used during the milling process.
3.2.1. Mechanisms of dry heating
Drying is known to be one of the most energy-intensive processes in the industry (Chen and Pei, 1989; Turner and Ferguson,
1995) that involves instantaneous heating and mass transfer in a
multiphase system (Turner and Ferguson, 1995). It is a dual process consisting of migration and evaporation of moisture. Initially,
the latent heat of evaporation needed is taken from a heat source
and then the moisture evaporates off the material surface, while
more moisture disperses slowly to the surface (Treybal, 1980).
The driving force for heat transfer is the temperature gradient amid
the material surface and the ambient air, while mass transfer, i.e.
moisture diffusion, is determined by the water concentration gradient between the sample interior and surface (Nellis and Klein,
2009; Ayensu, 1994).
A study done by Chen and Pei 1989 indicated that when a porous material is exposed to a convective surface condition, there are
three main mechanisms of internal moisture transfer, which are
the capillary ow of free water, movement of bound water and
vapor transfer. The sufcient initial moisture content of the porous
material allows for the evaporation process to take place on the
surface of the free water. Internal moisture transfer is mainly
accountable to the capillary ow of free water through the voids.
Therefore, the drying rate is usually determined by conditions,
such as, temperature, humidity and ow rate of the convective
medium. If further drying is conducted, the portion of the wet area
shrinkages with the declining surface moisture content, so that the
mass transfer coefcient decreases (Chen and Pei, 1989).
3.3. Microwave heating
Almost similar to the dry heating method, microwave heating of
the oil palm fruitlets is also gaining popularity in current research
developments to replace the sterilization process in the oil palm
mills that are conducted by means of steaming. Microwave energy
offers numerous advantages such as, faster throughputs, space and
energy savings and quality improvements, in addition to the distinct advantages of each particular chemical or physical process
of the respective industry (Metaxas and Meredith, 1983) allowing
for its application in the industrial processing for many years and
its preferences over the usage of the conventional heating. Besides
that, Chow and Ma (2007) also included that with the use of microwave energy, the use of the boiler is no longer needed for fruit
detachment. With that, the milling process would not only be a
process only limited to the extraction of oil, but also for the recovery of other high value-added Nutraceuticals too. This would denitely help in enhancing the economy of the palm oil production.

to the many advantages it offers over the conventional thermal

heating. Some of these advantages include: volumetric heating,
reduced heating time, and better controllability (Ku et al.,
submitted for publication). Microwave heating mechanizes the
transformation of alternating electromagnetic eld energy into
thermal energy by affecting the polar molecules of a material.
The volumetric heating is the most important characteristic of
microwave heating (Mullin, 1995). Conventional thermal processing involves energy transfer to the material through convection,
conduction, and radiation of heat from the surfaces of the material.
Volumetric heating indicates the ability of the materials to absorb
microwave energy directly and internally and then converting it
into heat, giving faster heating rates, as compared to conventional
heating whereby heat is transferred from the surface to the interior
(Gowen et al., 2006). In heat transfer, energy is transferred due to
thermal gradients, but microwave heating is the transfer of electromagnetic energy to thermal energy and is energy conversion,
rather than heat transfer (Thostenson and Chou, 1999; Nour
et al., 2010). This difference in the way energy is delivered is what
gives potential advantages to using microwaves for processing of
materials since microwaves can emit energy throughout the volume of the material (Thostenson and Chou, 1999; Venkatesh and
Raghavan, 2004).
Another advantage is that the heat generated by microwave
energy does not mostly occur in the oven walls or the atmosphere,
but it occurs principally in the product (Hasna, 2001). Therefore,
heat losses from the oven to the surroundings are much lower.
Moreover, there is possibility of a fast start-up and shut-down
and precise process control in microwave heating (Mullin, 1995).
3.3.2. Pre-treatment of oil palm fruits using microwave technology
The microwave energy absorption ability of the bunch denes
the effective impartiality of the palm fruitlet from the bunch subjected to the microwave sterilization technique and it is very much
associated with the dielectric properties surrounding the abscission layer (as shown in Fig. 2) of the oil palm bunch (Sukaribin
and Khalid, 2009).
The power absorbed per unit volume can be expressed as
(Metaxas and Meredith, 1983),

P 2pf e0 e00eff jEin j2

where Ein is the magnitude of the internal electric eld, e00 eff the relative effective loss factor, e0 the permittivity of free space and f the
microwave frequency. Sukaribin and Khalid (2009) deduced from
their study that, at microwave frequency of 2500 MHz, there are
two physical mechanisms through which energy can be transported

2 3

4 5 6

7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

Pedicel

3.3.1. Microwave energy and its advantages

Microwave irradiation as an energy source in material processing is the current trend as of today since the last decade. This is due

Mesocarp
Abscission layer

Fig. 2. Division of the fruitlet from pedicel to the tip of the moisture measurement.
Source: Moisture content measurement study from Sukaribin and Khalid (2009).

C.J. Vincent et al. / Journal of Food Engineering 143 (2014) 123131

or absorbed by the dielectric material, which are, the movement of

iconic constituents and another is due to the re-orientation of permanent dipole molecules in the material. The latter is related to the
presence of water or moisture content in the material (Metaxas and
Meredith, 1983).
The study done by Sukaribin and Khalid (2009) indicated that
the abscission region has the highest moisture content. In general,
the dielectric constant and dielectric loss of the abscission layer,
followed the trend of the dielectric spectrum of mesocarp (Khalid
et al., 1996). Sukaribin and Khalid (2009), in their study, deduced
that the conductive loss of the ionic constituents plus the water
molecules available contributed to the microwave heating in the
abscission region. Based on Eq. (1) and by bearing in mind the
inside electric eld is identical for abscission region and mesocarp,
the abscission region will absorb ve to seven times higher microwave power per unit volume, compared to the mesocarp region.
Therefore fruit loosening from the bunch would not cause any
damage to the other regions of the fruit. These results clearly veried that microwave radiation can be used for fruit detachment
from the bunch since the abscission layer has the highest dielectric
properties as compared to the other parts of the fruitlets and in
relation to that, the two main contributing factors included higher
moisture content and conduction loss from ionic constituents.
On another note, the pre-treatment study of the oil palm fruitlets by means of microwave heating was also done by Chow and
Ma (2007) and they indicated that the temperature used does
not exceed 100 C. They then mentioned that this low temperature
is much capable of maintaining the oil quality compared to the
conventional sterilization process of 140 C in steam. However,
non-homogeneous heating was noticed from the variation of temperatures of the fruit mesocarp obtained. Khalid et al. (1996) determined that there is a variation in the moisture content even within
a single fruit, and thus its susceptibility to microwave heating. The
study conducted by Chow and Ma (2007) inferred that three minutes is enough for the complete detaching of the fruits from the
two spikelets without browning the center of the kernel. Prolonged
heating would result in browning in the center of the kernel and
has the tendency of the whole kernel to get burned. This is considered undesirable as it will alter the quality and color of the kernel
oil. In addition, a study by Sukaribin and Khalid (2009) stated that
heating is crucial in facilitating efcient stripping and that increasing the microwave power level enables it to be done at a shorter
time. Increment of power level to yield shorter heating time was
also observed in other studies such as cranberries heating
(Beaudry et al., 2003) and wet polyester drying (Kumar, 1982).
In another study by Chow and Ma (2007), dehydration of the
fruits was noted with the nd of water condensed droplets
observed on the fruits and in the interior of the microwave. It
was also found that length heating hardens and desiccates the
brous mesocarp. They also added that there were cracks in the
epidermis of the microwave detached fruits, presumed due to the
volumetric heating of microwaves that give rise to the pressure
as the water was rapidly heated and evaporated. However, Chow
and Ma (2007) had concluded that low free fatty acid was still able
to achieve even though there was residual moisture content present in the mesocarp.
Chow and Ma (2007) and Choo and Yap (1991) suggested from
their study that microwave heated oil palm fruits should also be
subjected to solvent extraction, similar to the dry-heated oil palm
fruits, as the solventized bers obtained were observed to be very
dry, fragile and completely decolourized, indicating thorough
exhaustion of oil and other valuable phytonutrients. With this,
positive output of possible derivation of more valuable minor components can feasibly be attained through the exhaustive solvent
extraction of the mesocarp with the suitable solvent.

127

4. Effect of pre-treatment on oil quality

Bunch strippability of the oil palm fruits subjected to a continuous sterilization process in the study by Sivasothy et al. (2006)
gave conclusive evidence that the newfound process that is accomplished using steam at low temperature in most mills using continuous sterilization improves bunch strippability with a minimal
percentage of 23% of undetachable fruits from the bunch. A study
to indicate the effectiveness of the methods employ conducted by
Sivasothy et al. (2006) tabulated the results of a comparative study
based on the ease of the mesocarp peeling from the nuts done simply by using ngers to squeeze it off.
Sivasothy et al. (2006) indicated based on the Table 1 that 2.13%
of the fruits from the batch sterilization that were primarily from
the inner layers of the bunch could not be peeled off. On the contrary, fruits that were subjected to continuous sterilization yielded
24.10% of fruits that could not be peeled off (Sivasothy et al., 2006).
As for the condition of the fruits, fruits from the batch process
cooks well compared to those that were subjected to continuous
sterilization process (Sivasothy et al., 2006). The ber in mills that
undergoes continuous sterilization process was perceived to be
greater in moisture and oil content.
The study by Hadi et al. (2012) proved the capability of the solvent extraction process and its effect on the palm fruits oil content. Fig. 3 shows that the oil yield increases with longer heating
time. Apart from that, it can also be deduced that extraction immediately after dry heating is the best to yielding higher quantity of
oil extracted. Correlation analysis of Fig. 3 showed that good relationships between oil yield and heating time were detected for
fruitlets extracted immediately after dry-heating (r = 0.958) and
extraction done 2 days after dry-heating (r = 0.964). The p-values
obtained for both conditions showed a signicant difference at
p < 0.05.
However, as written in the study by Hadi et al. (2012) also, dry
heating has the tendency to expose the oil palm fruits to probable
burning. Lengthy heating time would cause the kernel to be overcooked as indicated in Table 2 above and it is the same for the
microwave-heated fruits, as projected in Table 3 below. In addition, hardened mesocarps would only make the depericarping process tougher. Heat penetration in terms of heating duration is the
key factor in sterilization of the oil palm fruits under dry heating
method. Moderate heating time of 23 min for both dry heating
(Hadi et al., 2012) and microwave heating (Chow and Ma, 2007)
was highly effective to loosen the nut from the mesocarp and at
the same time keeping the kernel in good condition for further processing because the kernels would then be sufciently dried and
shrunk from the shell thus enabling easier detachment of the kernels from the shells when the nuts are later on cracked.
On the other hand, an important parameter to monitor for the
quality of oil obtained is the Free Fatty Acid (FFA) content after
the oil has been extracted. Table 4 from the continuous sterilization study done by Sivasothy et al. (2006) shows that no obvious
increment in the FFA because of bruising was detected. The low
FFA content of 2.1% in the oil from the continuous sterilizer is mentioned by Sivasothy et al. (2006) to be accredited to the short delay
between the crushing and heating steps.
However, the deterioration of bleachability index (DOBI) value
for the oil obtained from the continuous sterilization process was
higher by 0.5 compared to the one obtained from the batch process. Sivasothy et al. (2006) had related this occurrence due to
the fact that lower temperature was used instead. According to
Lin (2001), DOBI is the most reliable tool to predict the ease of
rening in the case of the Crude Palm Oil (CPO). Lin (2001) also
added that the CPO needs to be rened, bleached and deodorized
before it can be consumed. The amount of bleaching earth needed

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C.J. Vincent et al. / Journal of Food Engineering 143 (2014) 123131

Table 1
Assessment of cooking effectiveness. Source: Sivasothy et al. (2006).
Source

Hard fruits
(%)

Batch sterilization (i.e. fruits from

mill)
Continuous sterilization

Table 4
Effect of sterilization process on oil quality. Source: Sivasothy et al. (2006).

Peeled mesocarp
(%)

2.13

45.47

24.10

37.68

Parameter

Batch sterilization

Continuous sterilization

FFA content (%)

Peroxide value (meq)
DOBI
Carotene content (ppm)
Iron content (ppm)

2.68
0.30
2.77
598
4.24

2.10
0.29
3.22
546
6.18

50
45
38.0

40

Oil yield (wt %)

32.5

35

32.6

36.6

30
25.0

30.7

25
20

24.9

16.8

24.5

15
14.9

10

Extraction immediately after dry heating

5
Extraction 2 days after dry-heating

0
1

Heating time (min)

Fig. 3. Oil yield of dry-heated oil palm fruits. Source: Hadi et al. (2012).

Table 2
Condition of the oil palm fruits upon dry heating. Source: Hadi et al. (2012).
Heating time (min)

Mesocarp

Kernel

1
2
3
4
5

Oily/soft
Oily/soft
Oily/soft
Half dried
Dried/hard

White
White
White
Slightly browned
Completely browned

to rene the oil to an admissible color to consumers as well as food

manufacturers are known from the DOBI value. The highest grade
of DOBI for the commercial CPO in palm oil mill is recorded at
above 3.24, good at 2.933.24, fair at 2.312.92 and poor at
1.782.30.
Sivasothy et al. (2006) also added that there is a correlation
between the cooking effectiveness and the pressure applied during
pressing with the carotene content of the oil. On the other hand,
Fig. 4 below is from the study done by Hadi et al. (2012), whereby
he proved that the FFA content in the dry-heated oil palm fruits
(ranging from 1.02% to 2.19%) are much lower than the limit for
trading purposes for crude palm oil (not exceeding 5%) specied
by the Malaysian Palm Oil Association (Noraini and Siew, 1990).
The study also showed that the FFA content in oil extracted after
storage of two days after heating did not differ much from the ones

Fig. 4. Free fatty acid content of dry-heated oil palm fruitlets. Source: Hadi et al.
(2012).

extracted immediately after heating. Correlation analysis of Fig. 4

showed that average relationships between free fatty acid content
and heating time were detected for fruitlets extracted immediately
after dry-heating (r = 0.639) and extraction done 2 days after dryheating (r = 0.573). The p-values obtained for both conditions
showed no signicant difference at p > 0.05. With that, Hadi et al.
(2012) concluded that dry heating of the oil palm fruitlets was an
efcient method that could cease the enzymatic reaction that usually allows for ascending in the FFA content in the oil palm fruitlets.
Hadi et al. (2012) also mentioned in his study that the DOBI
value of the dry-heated fruits obtained was 4.19 at minimum, indicating that the oil extracted from this method has superb quality.
Apart being highly affected by the fruit maturity, the DOBI value
is also inuenced by other factors such as the contamination of
CPO with sterilizer condensate during sterilization, and the lengthy
sterilization process, thus, giving dry heating an advantage
whereby DOBI is a concern. In addition to this, Lin (2001) had also
stated in his study that lower Rancimat values coincide with lower
DOBI values. Rancimat values are the measurement of the oxidative stability of the oil extracted. In other words, it is dened as
the ability of the palm oil to resist the oxidation process due to
lengthy high temperature heat treatment.
On par with that, the free fatty acid content in microwave
heated oil palm fruits in the study of Sukaribin and Khalid (2009)
also indicated that the percentage obtained was satisfactory,

Table 3
Effect of microwave heating on spikelets of palm fruits. Source: Chow and Ma (2007).

Time of microwave heating

(min)

Number of fruits per spikeleta (number of

detachable fruitlets)

% of Detachable fruits from the 2

spikelets

Temperature of
mesocarpa (C)

Condition of
kernel

1
2
3
4

14(5), 10(3)
13(9), 10(9)
7(7), 14(14)
10(10), 15(15)

33
78
100
100

38,
55,
64,
69,

7(7), 10(10)

100

89, 94

White
White
White
Centered
browned
Completely
browned

Two values from two different spikelets.

41
81
83
96

C.J. Vincent et al. / Journal of Food Engineering 143 (2014) 123131

129

Table 5
Quality of extracted oil and oil content of microwave detached and dried fruits.
Source: Chow and Ma (2007).
Time of
microwave drying
(s)

Oil
contenta

Carotene
content (ppm)

Free fatty acid (% based on

palmitic acid)

0
20
30
40
50
60
18 h 103 C oven

15.3
30.3
27.8
42.5
52.1
53.4
58.7

614
664
818
881
732
704
439

0.50
0.31
0.55
0.24
0.24
0.49
1.17

Oil content computed based on weight of oil extracted/weight of partially dried

fruits. As fruits were heated longer, more water was removed and thus the fruits
weighed less.

within the range of 0.520.85%. In a good manner, these values are

low considering the fact that high moisture loss was recorded for
the microwave heated fruits due to dehydration.
The use of temperatures not exceeding 100 C in the study conducted by Chow and Ma (2007) also yielded results that about
614881 ppm of Vitamin E was retained compared to the conventionally heated fruits where the carotene content was only
439 ppm as shown in Table 3.
Table 5 from the study by Chow and Ma (2007) also agrees with
Hadi et al. (2012)s study on dry-heated palm fruits whereby the
amount of oil content obtained increases with increasing heating
time.
The extraction process is done together with the kernel intact.
However, no record of the palm oil being contaminated by the kernel oil and vice versa during any of the process (Sukaribin and
Khalid, 2009). Therefore, it can be deduced that the kernel shell
is impermeable to the solvent, hexane and that solvent extraction
is one of the effective methods that can be applied for oil extraction
of microwave-treated fruits.

5. Effect of thermal softening on the textural properties of palm

oil fruitlets
Pomeranz and Meloan (1994) dened textural properties as a
signicant characteristic that expresses the rheological properties
of a food because it takes account the processing methods involved
and also its handling procedures (Charm, 1962). Textural studies
are usually done to acquire mechanical tests that substitutes for
human sensory tests to enable food texture and quality estimation
(Peleg, 1983).
A study by Rahman and Al-Farsi (2005) on the instrumental
Texture Prole Analysis (TPA) of date esh as a function of moisture content, had reported that hardness, resilience and chewiness
increased exponentially with the decrease of moisture content,
whereas cohesiveness, adhesiveness and springiness showed a
peak at around moisture content of 21.5%. In relation to the study
of heat treatment on the oil palm fruitlets, obvious changes in the
rheological behavior of the fruitlets were observed and this information is useful in the optimization of the heating parameters used
in the sterilization process. Cohesiveness is usually used in
expressing the ability and the rate at which the material breaks
apart. Overall, it denes how well the product is able to withstand
a second deformation relative to how it behaves under the rst
deformation.
In another study by Abbas et al. (2006), the study of the TPA of
the fresh and sterilized palm oil fruitlets were done and it was
deduced in the study that the thermal treatment was a success
in yielding better strippability of palm fruits from the bunches
and better dehusking of mesocarp from the kernel nuts with signif-

Fig. 5. R represents the location points where the penetration force applied to fresh
and sterilized palm oil fruitlets in Newton (N) unit. Source: Abbas et al. (2006).

icant reductions in the fracturability, hardness and adhesiveness

values of the palm fruitlets.
Fig. 5 illustrates the selected punching points of the compression forces on the abscission layer, mesocarp and palm kernel
nut for both fresh and sterilized fruitlets that were done in the
study by Abbas et al. (2006) to study the effect on the textural
properties of palm oil fruitlets when subjected to thermal treatment. The study by Abbas et al. (2006) applies the use of a P2 plunger probe to determine the fracturability, hardness and
adhesiveness of the mesocarp esh and the abscission layer by
applying a single bite penetration (10% penetration) using the Texture Analyzer TA-TX2 (Stable Micro Systems Ltd., Godalming, UK)
on a Texture Prole Analysis (TPA) curve.
The studies done by various researchers prove that the pretreatment conditioning is a preliminary processing activity that
can help in encouraging the loosening of the palm mesocarp from
the nuts as well as other benets such as increasing the quality and
yield of the oil extracted.

6. Problems and research needs

Microwave and dry heating of the fruitlets to replace the steaming process for the sterilization of the fruitlets has denitely shown
potential to be a continuous green technology for the milling process. However, this only applies to already cut fruit bunches as
compared to the current sterilization process held in mills whereby
the whole stalk can be easily subjected to the process. Moreover,
previous studies on existing microwaves and ovens to replace
the current sterilization process in mills, can only accommodate
small amounts of the fruitlets to be sterilized at one time. No doubt
sterilization by means of microwaves and ovens for every batch
takes shorter time compared to the steaming process, but calculating the total amount of time for it to nish sterilizing the amount
of just one batch of steaming process, the sums equals up. Manual
labor is also required to constantly remove and inserting new fruitlets, as compared to the steaming process. Industrial scale microwaves and ovens should be designed and studied to obtain a
thorough view which would give effective results thus yielding
better quality of oil as well.
Continuous sterilizers may reduce manual labors, but this technology also have limited success in terms of the complexity, degree
of the equipment and inaccessibility of spare parts, giving rise to
cumbersome maintenance works, as well as wearing down of
shafts and other major parts of the equipment due to the friction
created by the fruitlets. All these problems is costly and not exactly
cost effective in the mills.
On the other hand, solvent extraction method was applied onto
fruitlets that were subjected to microwave and dry heating to
extract the oil from the oil-bearing palm fruits. Solvent extraction
uses organic solvents and there is a possibility of toxicity from the
solvent used and danger of re explosion from the use of volatile

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C.J. Vincent et al. / Journal of Food Engineering 143 (2014) 123131

organic solvent. Besides that, as compared to the screw-pressing

method used in mills, the solvent extraction method would involve
manual and labor intensive. Therefore, it is strenuous, arduous, tiring, time consuming and inefcient.
In view of the considerable range of methods to replace steaming for the sterilization of the palm fruitlets and oil extraction process, selection of the most appropriate method for a given
environment requires thorough research into current sterilization
process, in comparison to the various new methods introduced
by various researchers. The research study should comprise areas
that will highlight the most efcient and improve methods to sterilize the fruitlets and extract oils as well as is cost beneting and
applicable to larger scale for the use in mills. It should also cover
the most suitable processing condition, socio-economic problems
and complying with the existing government policies.
Careful studies on the abovementioned factors can help determine areas of the whole process that need improvements and also
offer maximum benets to the mills. Hence, continuous thorough
research effort and efcient use of human resources and technical
inputs are essential pre-requisites for improving the yield and
extracted oil quality.
7. Conclusions
The pre-treatment and oil extraction methods of the oil palm
fruitlets have been reviewed. Past studies on continuous sterilizer,
microwave heating and oven heating showed conclusive evidence
that the methods are capable of replacing the current sterilization
process in an attempt to halt the release of efuents to the atmosphere from the vast amount of steam used. The oil yield and the
quality depend very much on two major factors, that is the preprocessing conditions and the methods or techniques adopted to
sterilize and extract the oil. Thorough comparison studies on factors such as costs and detailed quality evaluation should be done
on the current sterilization method and the new techniques introduced since both the current and new methods gave equally good
benets.
Acknowledgements
The author thanks Associate Professor Dr. Rosnah Shamsudin
and Dr. Azhari Samsu Baharuddin for the guidance, continuous
support and encouragement given for the success of this paper.
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