Chem. Prod. Process Model.
2016; aop
Bamidele V. Ayodele* and Chin Kui Cheng
Biorefinery for the Production of Biodiesel,
Hydrogen and Synthesis Gas Integrated
with CHP from Oil Palm in Malaysia
DOI 10.1515/cppm-2015-0050
Received November 26, 2015; revised May 24, 2016;
accepted July 7, 2016
Abstract: Malaysia is presently the world’s largest exporter
of palm oil with total production of 19.22 million tonnes of
crude palm oil (CPO) in 2013. Aside CPO, by-products such
as empty fruit bunch (EFB), palm kernel shell (PKS), palm
kernel oil (PKO), palm kernel cake (PKC) and pressed palm
fibres (PPF) are produced from the palm oil mills. These
biomasses can be used as potential feedstock for the pro-
duction of biofuels, biogas and bioelectricity. One of the
ways to fully harness the potentials of these biomasses is by
employing the biorefinery concepts where all the products
and by-products from oil palm are utilized for production of
valuable bio-products. In this study, technological feasibil-
ity of biorefinery for the production of biodiesel, hydrogen,
Fischer-Tropsch liquids (FTLs) integrated with combined
heat and power (CHP) generation was investigated.
Flowsheet was designed for each of the processes using
Aspen HYSYS® v 8.0. Material balance was performed on
a palm oil mill processing 250 tonnes per year of fresh fruit
palm (FFP). Results from the material balance shows that
45.1 tonnes of refined bleached deodorized palm oil
(RDBPO) and 52.4 tonnes of EFB were available for the
production of biodiesel, hydrogen, FTLs and the CHP gen-
eration. The annual plant capacity of the biodiesel produc-
tion is estimated to be 26,331.912 tonnes. The overall energy
consumption of the whole process was estimated to be
36.0 GJ/h. This energy demand was met with power gener-
ated from the CHP which is 792 GJ/h leaving a surplus of
756 GJ/h that can be sold to the grid. The process modelling
and simulation of the biorefinery process shows technolo-
gical feasibility of producing valuable products from
oil palm.
*Corresponding author: Bamidele V. Ayodele, Faculty of Chemical &
Natural Resources Engineering, Universiti Malaysia Pahang,
Lebuhraya Tun Razak, 26300 Gambang Kuantan, Pahang Malaysia,
E-mail: bamidele.ayodele@uniben.edu
Chin Kui Cheng, Faculty of Chemical & Natural Resources
Engineering, Universiti Malaysia Pahang, Lebuhraya Tun Razak,
26300 Gambang Kuantan, Pahang Malaysia
Keywords: Aspen Hysys, biorefinery, biodiesel, crude
palm oil, empty fruit bunch
1 Introduction
Transportation plays significant role in social-economic
development and it presently accounts for 40 % of the
total energy consumption in Malaysia making it second
to the industrial sector in terms of energy consumption [1]
Transportation sector is also responsible for about 98 % of
the total consumption of petroleum in Malaysia with total
estimate of 250 mega tonnes of CO2 emission in 2013 [2].
The rate of consumptions of petroleum by the trans-
portation sector in Malaysia has been projected to
increase by 5.6 % annually as a result of the rapid eco-
nomic growth [3]. It is expected that the petroleum con-
sumption rate will rise to 4,122.6 GJ in 2020 [4]. Although,
Malaysia as net exporter of energy, is endowed with
different sources of energy derived from coal, petroleum,
natural gas which are sufficient to meet the ever increas-
ing energy demand in both transportation and the indus-
trial sector [5, 6]. However, the environmental implication
of meeting this energy demand from fossil fuels has been
a major concern for researchers [7]. Ang et al. [8] pro-
jected that 500 mega tonnes of CO2 might be released
into the environment by 2020 if there are no measures
taken to mitigate CO2 emission in Malaysia.
In order to circumvent the potential challenges that
might arise from the increasing consumption of petroleum-
derived fuels, there has been a wide investigation on the
alternative sources of energy production mostly from
Jatropha seed and palm oil waste [9]. The government on
its part have made much effort to formulate policies that
will increase the generation of renewable energy as part of
the energy mix of the future [10]. The National Biofuel
Policy was lunched by the Malaysia government in 2006
[11]. There is a target of generating 5.5 % of the total power
generation from renewable energy in 2015 [5]. According to
the 10th Malaysia plan (2011–2015), the government has
planned to introduce Feed-in-Tariff to help finance renew-
able energy investments, provide fiscal incentives and
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2 B. V. Ayodele and C. K. Cheng: Biorefinery for the Production
funding for green technology investments and promote
projects eligible for carbon credit [12]. Furthermore, the
B5 policy of blending at least 5 % of biodiesel with petro-
diesel will see Malaysia consuming about 560 million litres
of biodiesel per annum [13].
Since the right policy is on ground to support the
growth of renewable energy in Malaysia, the big ques-
tion is there enough bioenergy resources to meet this
demand in the future? According to Mekhilef et al. [10],
Malaysia has vast renewable resources ranging from
agricultural waste, forest residues, municipal waste to
crops for biofuel production e. g. Jatropha curcas and
palm tree. Malaysia accounts for 39 % of world produc-
tion of palm oil and 44 % of global export of palm oil,
presently ranked second in global palm oil production
next to Indonesia [14]. As at today, Malaysia produced
about 21,250,000 tonnes of palm oil which have strate-
gically positioned Malaysia as one of the key players in
the world biodiesel production from palm [15].
Palm oil has distinct advantage as feedstock for
biodiesel over other feedstock such as rapeseed, sun-
flower, soybeans and Jatropha curcas. Apart from being
the most productive crop, it is less expensive compare
to other feedstock. Moreover, it is a perennial crop with
long life span and economic cycle of about 25 years and
it is not often affected by the change in climatic condi-
tions [16]. One key advantage of palm oil as feedstock
for biodiesel production is the potential of developing
biorefinery from the by-products similar to that of
sugarcane biorefinery concepts presently operational
in Brazil for the production of bioethanol and
bioelectricity.
Cherubini [17] highlighted the importance of using
biomass instead of crude oil for producing bioenergy
and bio-based chemicals. The author concluded that the
integration of green chemistry into biorefineries and the
use of low environmental impact technologies will
enhance future sustainable production chains of biofuels
and high-value chemicals from biomass.
Several authors have employed the biorefinery con-
cepts to model the production of biofuel, bioelectricity,
and other bio-based chemicals from feedstocks such as
sugarcane [18], corn [19], wheat [20],and sweet sorghum
[21]. However, few kinds of literature have been cited on
the application of biorefinery concepts for production of
bio-products from oil palm [22]. These authors only
focused on the utilization of the feedstock for biofuel
and other bio-based chemical productions. The feasibility
of co-production of biofuels (biodiesel), hydrogen, bioe-
lectricity and Fischer-Tropsch liquids (FTLs) using the
biorefinery concepts has not been reported. Therefore,
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the main objective of this study is to employ the biore-
finery concepts for production of biodiesel, bioelectricity,
hydrogen and FTLs from oil palm in Malaysia. This will
be achieved using Aspen HYSY® modelling software to
evaluate the technical viability of the proposed biorefin-
ery. Aspen HYSYS is a robust simulation package that is
usually employed in process simulation due to its wide
applications in the industries [23]. The Aspen HYSYS soft-
ware has inbuilt properties for solid, liquid and gaseous
calculations.
2 Methodology
The biorefinery concept was employed in this study for
the process modeling and simulation of biodiesel,
hydrogen, FTLs as well as cogeneration of heat and
electricity. This concept has previous been used for the
production of bioethanol, methane and heat from sugar-
cane bagasse [24]. In the present study, the feedstocks
to the proposed biorefinery comprise of palm oil and
EFB only. The flowsheet was developed for the biorefin-
ery to generate mass and energy balances using com-
mercial process simulation tool, Aspen HYSYS® v8.0
(Aspen Technology, Inc., USA). In order to calculate
the activity coefficients of the liquid phase, the non-
random two liquid (NTRL) thermodynamics model was
selected [25]. The data used for the biorefinery concept
were obtained from literature [26–29] and applied for
the simulation of the process. The method employed in
this study includes the design of flowsheet for the dif-
ferent scenarios and simulation using the data obtained
from the literature. The different stages involved in the
development of the flowsheet are described in the sub-
sequent sections.
2.1 Simulation assumptions
The method described above employed computer simu-
lation for the description of the production of biodiesel,
hydrogen, FTLs as well as cogeneration of heat and
electricity from EFB. The following assumptions were
applied to simplify the simulation process:
i. The simulation was done in a steady state mode
ii. The thermodynamic model was based on NTRL
iii. The effects of pressure drop along the columns
were not considered
iv. The EFB employed in this simulation is assumed to
be bone dry
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 B. V. Ayodele and C. K. Cheng: Biorefinery for the Production 3

2.2 Process description
2.2.1 Extraction of crude oil from the fresh fruit bunch
(FFB)
The process flow diagram representing the extraction of
crude palm oil from the extraction of crude palm oil from
fresh fruit bunch, FFB is shown in Figure 1. The FFB were
brought in contact with a live steam at a pressure of 3.1
bar for about an hour in a sterilizer. The direct contact of
the FFB with the live steam will soften the fruits and
enables the fruit to be separated from bunches. The
separation of the fruits and the bunch is done with a
threshing machine which is made up of the rotary
drum. The rotation of the drum aids the fruit to be
detached from the bunch into the slots of the drum
which is then conveyed to the digester. The fruits were
mashed in the digester leading to the separation of the
crude palm oil from the press cake. The pressed cake
containing fibres and nuts was sent to a separator for

Figure 1: Flow diagram for processing fresh fruit bunch (FFB).

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4 B. V. Ayodele and C. K. Cheng: Biorefinery for the Production
further processing to obtain palm kernel oil (PKO), palm
kernel cake (PKC) and palm kernel shell (PKS). Coarse
fibres and other dirt particles were removed from the
crude palm oil using the vibrating screen. The crude
palm oil was separated from sludge in a heated settling
tank by means of gravity. Clear oil was obtained from the
settling tank and centrifuged before pumping it to a
vacuum dryer to further remove moisture. The sludge
separated from the crude palm oil was decanted and
centrifuged to remove any trace of oil before pumping it
to a pond for the production of biogas.
2.2.2 Processing of EFB
The composition of a typical EFB obtained from oil palm
mill is shown in Table 1. Due to high moisture, EFB cannot
directly be used as a feedstock for subsequent processes,
hence, there is a need for drying to reduce the moisture
content before it can be used. The EFB should also be
washed with clean water to remove traces of impurities.
The moisture content in the EFB is reduced by drying in
the oven at 75°C for about 6 h. The particle size of the EFB
is reduced to about 2 mm with a mill blade [27].
Table 1: Composition of EFB [27].
Component Conditions
Carbon .
Hydrogen .
Nitrogen .
Sulphur < .
Oxygen .
K .
2.2.3 Scenario A: Stand-alone biodiesel production
from Palm oil
The process diagram for biodiesel production from crude
palm oil is shown in Figure 2. Biodiesel is produced from
transesterification reaction between a triglyceride (from
RBDPO) and short-chain alcohol (e. g. methanol) in the
presence of a catalyst as represented in Equation 1 [30].
TG + 3CH3 OH ! 3R′CO2 CH3 + GL
where TG and GL are triglycerides and Glycerol
respectively
Base catalysts such as sodium hydroxide (NaOH) and
potassium hydroxide (KOH) are commonly used in the
commercial production. This is because these base
catalysts are relatively cheap compared to enzymatic
and heterogeneous catalysts, can speed up the reaction
under mild conditions and are readily available in the
market [31]. The process involves the initial pre-treatment
of the crude oil palm (CPO) to enhance the oxidative
stability of the CPO as well as reducing the amount of
free fatty acid (FFA) in the oil. According to Lim & Teong
[32], the CPO is subjected to series of pre-treatment steps
which include degumming, neutralization by caustic
soda, pigment removal using bleaching earth and high-
temperature vacuum deodorization to obtain a refined,
bleached and deodorized palm oil/olein (RBDPO). For
this study, it is assumed that the crude palm oil has
been pre-treated to give RBDPO. The mixture of RBDPO
and excess methanol with a molar ratio of 1:12 was
heated in the presence of NaOH catalyst to a reaction
temperature of 60 °C to produce biodiesel [33]. It is essen-
tial to remove glycerol, a by-product formed during the
transesterification reaction in order to obtain high con-
version of biodiesel [15]. Once the reaction attains com-
pletion, the excess methanol used is recovered and
purified in a packing distillation column. This will enable
the purified methanol to be recycled and used for subse-
quent batch. The biodiesel obtained is washed with water
in a hydrocyclone for catalyst removal and purification.
The washed biodiesel is subsequently vacuum-dried to
reduce the water content to acceptable limits of biodiesel.
2.2.4 Production of Hydrogen form Glycerol obtained
as a by-product of biodiesel
The glycerol obtained as a by-product of the biodiesel
production was separated using a component splitter.
Saturated steam was used for reforming the glycerol in
a conversion reactor as represented in the eq. (2) [34].
C3 H8 O3 + 3H2 O $ 3CO2 + 4H2 (2)
Water-gas shift reaction
CO + H2 O ! CO + H2 O (3)
Overal reaction
C3 H8 O3 + 3H2 O $ 3CO2 + 7H2 (4)
(1)
2.2.5 Scenario B: Standalone syngas production
from EFB.
The process flow diagram for syngas production from
gasification of EFB is shown in Figure 3. The EFB
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 B. V. Ayodele and C. K. Cheng: Biorefinery for the Production 5

Stream name Methanol NaOH RBDPO Water Water for steam Biodiesel Glycerol Distillate from Hydrogen
prod glycerol
recovery column
Temperature 25 25 25 25 25 60 25 60 300
(oC)
Pressure 101.3 101.3 101.3 101.3 1013 380 50 101.3 101.3
(kPa)
Mass flow 352.5 30 3754 11 10 4136 795.2 18.84 270.7
(kg/h)

Figure 2: Process Flow Diagram for the Production of Biodiesel and Hydrogen from Crude Palm Oil and Glycerol.

Figure 3: Process Flow Diagram for the production of Fischer-Tropsch Liquids from EFB gasification.

gasification process is divided into three stages namely
feeding process, gasification, and gas purification. The
EFB with moisture contents of about 65 % was dried to
remove the moisture and pulverised before feeding into
the gasifier. The EFB was gasified at the 900°C to produce
syngas. In order to remove any traces of impurities and
sulphur compounds, the syngas was passed through a
scrubber. It is important to remove the sulphur compounds
from the syngas due to their adverse effect on the catalytic
conversion process via poisoning of the catalyst active
sites [34]. The purified syngas can subsequently be used
as feedstock for other chemical products using either
Fischer-Tropsch Synthesis (FTS) or Exxon Mobil MTS pro-
cess [35]. For this study, the syngas was used as feedstock
in FTS. The data used for the simulation of the gasification
process are shown in Table 2.
2.2.6 Scenario C: Combined heat and power generation
The process flow diagram for the simulation of the CHP
generation is shown in Figure 4. Heat and electricity can

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6 B. V. Ayodele and C. K. Cheng: Biorefinery for the Production

Table 2: Parameters used for simulating EFB gasification for syngas Table 3: Parameters used for the simulation of the
production [36]. CHP generation [37].

Property Value Parameters Conditions

Gasification conditions Power boiler efficiency (%) 

Temperature °C  Turbine inlet pressure (Mpa) 
Equivalence ratio (–) . Turbine inlet temperature °C 
Fluidizing medium silica sand Turbine outlet pressure (Mpa) .
Average diameter of fluidizing medium (mm) . Turbine outlet temperature °C 
Minimum syngas cooling temperature °C  Turbine Isentropic Efficiency (%) 
Generator efficiency (%) 

be co-generated in the oil palm-biorefinery by using dif-

ferent fuel options such as, the syngas produced from the
gasification of EFB and syngas produced from anaerobic
digestion of the palm oil mill effluent (POME) from the oil
mill. For this study biomass-fired (Brayton cycle) gas
turbine was employed for the CHP [36]. It involves the
gasification of the biomass (EFB) in a boiler to generate
high-temperature, high-pressure steam which is then
used to spin the turbine and produce a shaft work output
to generate electricity [37]. The operation conditions for
simulating the CHP generation is shown in Table 3.
2.2.7 Scenario D: The Biorefinery concept
In this scenario, biodiesel productions from the RBDPO,
FTLs production from gasification of EFB and hydrogen
production from glycerol obtained as a by-product of
biodiesel were considered as a single plant. For this, a
biorefinery plant with the capacity to process 250 tonnes
of FFB per hour will be investigated. This capacity is
selected to mimic what is obtainable in the commercial
palm oil mills. The RBDPO produced from the oil mill
serves as the feedstock for biodiesel production process,
while EFB obtained as by-products of the CPO processing
serves as feedstock for the FTLs production and CHP
generation as previously described.
3 Results and discussion
3.1 Material balance for the fresh fruit palm
processing
The material balance for processing 250 000 kg FFB/yr is
shown in Figure 5. This capacity was chosen based on the

Figure 4: Process Flow Diagram for CHP generation from EFB.

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 B. V. Ayodele and C. K. Cheng: Biorefinery for the Production
Figure 5: Material Balance for Processing 250 000 kg/yr of FFB.
typical install capacity of oil palm mill in Malaysia which
ranges from 150 000 to 400,000 kg per year [38]. The
plants run for 8 h in a single shift. Based on this capacity,
135.32 kg/day of RDBPO was used as the feedstock flow-
rate in the simulation of biodiesel production. The EFB
generated from the processing of 250,000 kg FFB/yr was
52,500 kg/yr which represents 21 % of the FFB. By keep-
ing in mind that EFB is made up about 65 % moisture
content [39], the EFB was assumed to have been dried to
reduce the moisture content. Based on the dried compo-
sition of the EFB, Hydrogen production, and CHP genera-
tion were simulated using 2,800 kg/day of EFB as
feedstock. The material balance of the oil palm mill
reveals that huge potentials of biomass can be obtained
as by-products. Apart from EFB, biomass such as PKS
and fibres are potential feedstocks for bioenergy produc-
tion. Similarly, the POME has been identified as potential
source for biogas production through anaerobic
digestion.
3.2 Integration of biodiesel and hydrogen
production
The biodiesel production was simulated using 3,753 kg
RBDPO/day based on the material balance calculation
represented in Figure 5. The design of the biodiesel pro-
duction allows for recovery of glycerol for subsequent use
in the steam reforming reaction to produce hydrogen. In
the previous studies on simulation of biodiesel produc-
tion from palm oil by West et al. [40] and Lee at al [41].
using HYSYS, glycerol was only recovered as a by-pro-
duct of the biodiesel plant. The transesterification
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7
reaction which takes place in conversion reactor was
modelled using RBDPO represented as triolein and
methanol in the presence of NaOH catalyst. The choice
of conversion reactor for the transesterification reaction
was due to the unavailability of kinetics data for the
heterogeneous NaOH-catalyzed reaction. Reactors such
as continuous stirred tank reactor (CSTR) and plug flow
reactor (PFR) have been previously used for simulation of
biodiesel production [41]. Mass fraction of 0.952 and
0.803 were obtained for biodiesel component using
CSTR and PFR respectively after the transesterification
reaction compared to 0.888 obtained using conversion
reactor for this study (Table 4). The product stream from
the conversion reactor consisting a mixture of biodiesel
and glycerol with a little amount of NaOH and unreacted
triolein were fed into the distillation column (refer to
Figure 2) for separation and further purification of the
biodiesel. The biodiesel was subsequently separated from
the glycerol using liquid-liquid extraction column and
distilled to obtain high purity. The glycerol obtained
from the liquid-liquid extractor was reacted with H3PO4
to remove NaOH and was subsequently separated using a
component splitter and fed to a distillation column to
obtain high purity before being used for steam reforming
process.
In the glycerol steam reforming reaction, conversion
reactor was also modelled employing a parametric ana-
lysis for the process due to unavailability of kinetic data
for the steam reforming reaction. The reforming reaction
was assumed to take place under atmospheric pressure
[42] at a temperature greater than 300 K. Temperatures
ranging from 333 K to 773 K were evaluated to determine
the corresponding hydrogen yield as shown in Figure 2.
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8 B. V. Ayodele and C. K. Cheng: Biorefinery for the Production

Table 4: Calculated Process streams from the simulation of Biodiesel and hydrogen production.

Stream Methanol RBDPO Biodiesel Glycerol Distillate from glycerol Hydrogen

recovery column

Temperature (°C)      

Pressure (kPa) . .   . .
Mass flow (kg/h)  , , . . .
Components fraction
Triolein – . . . – –
Methanol . – – – – –
HPO – – – – – –
NaPO – – – – – –
Biodiesel – – . . – –
NaOH – – . – – –
Glycerol – – . . . –
Hydrogen – – – – – .
CO – – – – – .
HO – – – – . –

The yield of hydrogen was found to decrease from 92 % at
323 K to about 62 % at 473 K and became constant at a
temperature greater than 500 K. An experimental study
by Cheng et al. [43] shows that hydrogen yield decreases
with increase in temperature.
3.3 Production of Fischer-Tropsch liquid
from gasification of EFB
From the material balance calculation in Figure 5,
52,500 kg EFB/yr was produced as a by-product from the
oil palm mill. This EFB is made up of 65 % moisture [39],
hence, it is necessary to air dry the EFB in order to reduce
the moisture. Conversion reactor was model as the gasifier
employing a parametric analysis using MATLAB [44]. This
was due to the unavailability of kinetic data for the gasi-
fication process. The EFB was gasified in the reactor at
temperature of 900 °C. Mohammed & Salmiaton [45],in
their experimental studies, investigated gasification tem-
perature between 700 and 1,000 °C and obtained the high-
est yield for the syngas at 850 °C. The H2/CO ratio
produced from the EFB gasification was estimated from
the yields of H2 and CO shown in Table 4 as 1.148, making
it suitable as chemical building block for FTS [46].
3.4 Integration of CHP generation
The total energy required for the biodiesel and hydrogen
production, as well as the FTS, is shown in Table 5.
A fraction of the dried EFB produced from the oil palm
mill was used for CHP generation. Biomass-fired (Brayton
cycle) gas turbine was employed for modelling the CHP
generation with generator efficiency of 97 %. The EFB was
combusted to produce a higher pressured gas which was
used to spin the turbine for electricity generation. Since
enormous heat was produced during the process, the heat
was utilized by passing the hot gas through a heat exchan-
ger to recover the heat for steam production. This steam
can further be used for glycerol reforming process to pro-
duce hydrogen. A total energy output of 220,000 kW. h
(792,000,000 kJ/h) was produced from the turbine. The
total energy requirements of all the process as shown in
Table 5 is 35,925,140.62 kJ/h leaving with energy surplus of
756,074,859.38 kJ/h which can be sold to the grid.
Table 5: Energy analysis for the Stand-alone Biodiesel and Hydrogen
Production.
Process Energy consumed (kJ/h)
Biodiesel and Hydrogen production ,,.
Fischer-Tropsch Synthesis ,.
CHP ,,
Total ,,.
4 Conclusions
In this study, biorefinery concept has been employed for
utilization of biomass resources from oil palm. The tech-
nical feasibility for the production of biodiesel, hydrogen,
and FTLs from palm oil incorporating CHP generation
using process modelling and simulation techniques has
been demonstrated. The material balance calculation
shows that 52.5 tonnes of EFB and 45.1 tonnes of
RBDPO per year were available for the biorefinery plant

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 B. V. Ayodele and C. K. Cheng: Biorefinery for the Production
producing biodiesel and hydrogen with yields of 88.8 %
and 91.1 % respectively. The simulation of the CHP shows
that 220,000 kW of electricity was generated which was
sufficient to meet the energy requirements of the biore-
finery plant. Incorporating biorefinery concept into the
existing oil mills in Malaysia would further boost the
renewable energy drive and increase electricity genera-
tion. However, to fully achieve this, it is necessary to
consider the economic implication of this concept using
economic indices in Malaysia.
Funding: The authors would like to acknowledge the
Science fund RDU130501 granted by the Ministry of
Science, Technology and Innovation Malaysia (MOSTI)
and the Doctoral Scholarship granted to Bamidele Victor
Ayodele by the Universiti Malaysia Pahang.
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