Drying of oil palm fronds using laboratory and commercial dryers

A. Samsudin, S. Furuichi and A. Shafie

 Abstract

Drying at temperature of 100 °C was an effective method to remove moisture from chopped oil palm fronds (OPF). It was proven both under laboratory and commercial drying trials where the drying processes took about 2 and 3– 4 h, to reduce the moisture content of layered OPF at 10 –20 cm thick from 65% to 7% and 15% respectively. Relatively high quality dried OPF were obtained with the brightness (L*), greenness (a*) and yellowness (b*) values of 58–63, – 4 to –3, and 26 –27 respectively, which were 4–9 points lower than the values measured on control sample. The crude protein and crude fibre of the dried produce were around 4.8% and 36% respectively which were 1–5% less than the protein and fibre contents in the control sample. About 412 kg dried OPF was produced using commercial size dryer with the capacity of about one tonne per batch. The drying cost to produce 1 tonne of dried product was about RM630.

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