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In the effort to produce renewable and biodegradable polymers, more studies are being undertaken to explore environmentally friendly sources to replace petroleum-based sources. The oil palm industry is not only the biggest vegetable-oil producer from crops but also one the biggest producers of residual oil that cannot be used for edible purposes due to its low quality. In this paper the development of biopolymers from residual palm oil, residual palm oil with 10% jatropha oil, and residual palm oil with 10% algae oil as additives were explored. Polyols from the different oils were prepared by epoxydation with peroxyacetic acid and alcoholysis under the same conditions and further reacted with poly isocyanate to form polyurethanes. Epoxidized oils, polyols and polyurethanes were analyzed by different techniques such as TGA, DSC, DMA, FTIR and H-NMR. Overall, although the IV of algae oil is slightly higher than that of jatropha oil, the usage of algae oil as additive into the residual palm oil was shown to significantly increase the hard segments and thermal stability of the bio polyurethane compared to the polymer with jatropha oil. Furthermore, when algae oil was mixed with the residual palm oil, it was possible to identify phosphate groups in the polyol which might enhance the fire-retardant properties of the final biopolymer.

In this study, the recovery of residual oil from the spikelet of oil palm empty fruit bunches (OPEFB) was conducted. Residual oil was present in the OPEFB due to mechanical processes such as the loading of fruit into the sterilizer cage, sterilization and threshing, in which a certain portion of the oil from the fruitlet was impregnated mainly on the surface of the spikelet rather than on the stalk of OPEFB. The highest residual oil content was found mainly in the small OPEFB (28.49 ± 5.20% dry basis). The oil extraction process was introduced as hydro solvent-assisted steam extraction, which comprises of four main steps, i.e., flooding, injection, soaking and draining. The overall process resulted in above 83% residual oil removal from the spikelet. The proposed method can be an option to be implemented in the palm oil mill because it is a chemical-free, environmentfriendly and novel process.

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