Abstract. During replanting activity in oil palm plantation, biomass including palm frond and trunk are produced. In palm oil mills, during the conversion process of fresh fruit bunches (FFB) into crude palm oil (CPO), several kinds of waste including empty fruit bunch (EFB), mesocarp fiber (MF), palm kernel shell (PKS), palm kernel meal (PKM), and palm oil mills effluent (POME) are produced. The production of these wastes is abundant as oil palm plantation area, FFB production, and palm oil mills spread all over 22 provinces in Indonesia. These wastes are still economical as they can be utilized as sources of alternative fuel, fertilizer, chemical compounds, and biomaterials. Therefore, breakthrough studies need to be done in order to improve the added value of oil palm, minimize the waste, and make oil palm industry more sustainable.

Biodiesel has gained worldwide popularity as an alternative energy source due to its renewable, non-toxic, biodegradable and non-flammable properties. It also has low emission profiles and is environmentally beneficial. Biodiesel can be used either in pure form or blended with conventional petrodiesel in automobiles without any major engine modifications. Various non-edible and edible oils can be used for the preparation of biodiesel. With no competition with food uses, the use of non-edible oils as alternative source for engine fuel will be important. Among the non-edible oils, such as Pongamia, Argemone and Castor, Jatropha curcas has tremendous potential for biodiesel production. J. curcas, growing mainly in tropical and sub-tropical climates across the developing world, is a multipurpose species with many attributes and considerable potentials. In this article, we review the oil extraction and characterization, the role of different catalysts on transesterification, the current state-of-the-art in biodiesel production, the process control and future potential improvement of biodiesel production from J. curcas.

No abstract

Supply chain sustainability assessment is key to maintaining and improving the performance of agroindustry supply chain, particularly in agroindustry sustainable development. Assessment of the agroindustry supply chain performance is a complex and dynamic process. Hence, there is a need for an adaptive fuzzy multi-criteria sustainability assessment model as an alternative method for analysis and improvement. This study aims to design an adaptive fuzzy multi-criteria sustainability assessment and improvement model of the sugarcane agroindustry supply chain. In this study, (1) fuzzy inference system (FIS) was developed to assess the performance of sustainability dimensions. This study proposed 24 indicators of 4 dimensions, namely, economic, social, environment, and resource. (2) Adaptive neuro fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) was designed for aggregating the overall supply chain sustainability performance. (3) The proposed fuzzy multi-criteria assessment model was compared with the common multidimensional scaling (MDS) and linear models. This study proved that the proposed synthesis of the FIS and ANFIS models was powerful and adaptive for evaluating supply chain sustainability and providing accurate results. (4) The strategy to improve sustainability performance was developed using the cosine amplitude method (CAM). The proposed model determined that the overall supply chain sustainability value was 68.58%, which is almost sustainable. Several strategies have been suggested to improve sustainability performance, including maintaining sugarcane supply by strengthening the partnership program and improving the mill's overall recovery, followed by factory revitalization or new factory investment.

No abstract