EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

FLUIDISED BED SEPARATION OF KERNEL AND SHELL OF OIL PALM NUTS

By
PREM KUMAR A/L NATHAN
177748

Chairman: Associate Professor. Dr. Mohamad Amran bin Mohd Salleh

Faculty : Engineering

Palm kernel is processed by cracking the shell to obtain nuts for industrial use. The cracked

kernel must be separated from its shell in order to further process in the industries. The

traditional separation method of recovering palm kernel from its palm shell-kernel mixtures in

many industries is known as wet method such as clay bath and hydro cyclone. The method uses

water as a processing media and separate cracked mixture of kernel and shell based on

differential specific gravities. The wet separation method is regarded as environmentally

unfriendly because it accumulates huge volume of waste effluent and incur cost for drying. As

a result, world researchers have taken alternative steps to separate kernel and shell of oil palm

nuts that is environmentally friendly. Among various methods found in recent years to separate

kernel and shell of oil palm nuts, fluidised bed segregation method using sand as a bed medium

emerges as most feasible and viable solution . Fluidization is defined as a process whereby

solids are made to behave like a fluid under the influence of blowing gas and liquid upwards

through the solid filled reactor (Dechsiri,2004).

In current study, fluidised bed separation of kernel and shell of palm oil nuts is performed in a

fluidised bed column using sand as the bed medium at different flow of compressed air velocity.

Experiments to determine minimum fluidization velocity (Umf).Filtered sand was fed into the
fluidized column up to the height of 5cm and compressed air velocity from the compressor was

passed through the perforated plate to the fluidized column whereby the fluid velocity

measured by air flow rotameter and the respective air pressure was measured using a digital

manometer. A graph of pressure drop versus superficial velocity was plotted from the data

obtained and the minimum fluidization velocity of sand found to be 0.025m/s. The same

procedures repeated by replacing sand with kernel and shell and the minimum fluidization

velocity of kernel and shell found to be 0.03m/s and 0.02m/s respectively according to theory

predicated. The minimum fluidization velocity of kernel and shell calculated theoretically

using Ergun equation and found to be 0.149m/s and 2.25m/s respectively. Three different

experiments were carried out which are varying bed heights at constant initial weight followed

by varying the initial weight of kernel and shell at constant bed height of 5cm and varying sizes

of kernel and shell at constant bed heights to study segregation efficiency of kernel(jetsam) and

shell (floatsam). The complete segregation of kernel to the bottom of bed occurs at the bed

height of 10cm at range of 0.027-0.033 and shell recorded highest segregation to the top of bed

at bed height of 10cm at range of 0.017-0.023m/s. The optimum segregation of kernel to the

bottom of bed (jetsam) occurs at initial weight of 15.9435g while highest segregation of shell

occurs at initial weight of 4.0866g. The optimum size for the complete segregation of kernel to

the bottom of bed is 13mm while the optimum size for highest segregation of shell to the top

of bed is 10mm.