Overview

The palm oil industry is an important contributor to Malaysia’s economy and development. In recent years, crude palm oil (CPO) has seen a steady increase in demand. This has put severe stress on farmers and plantation owners to rapidly expand crop lands and plantations to meet rising demands. However, the expansion has resulted in large scale unplanned deforestation. This has raised serious concerns due to the negative environmental impacts of deforestation and also raised doubts on sustainability in oil palm plantation expansion.

In response to this, the recent European Union resolution had opted to ban CPO-based products in the EU due to its alleged unsustainable value chain. This has put countries like Malaysia in a very complex situation. In this respect, it is a crucial time for the palm oil industry to swiftly respond and ease doubts on the sustainability of CPO production. To achieve this, systematic tools must be developed to analyse expansion strategies are planned and more sustainable.

This seminar talk discusses recent systematic tools developed as part of a collaborative effort between Heriot-Watt University, Taylor’s University and De La Salle University. These tools can be used for sustainable planning and development of existing or future palm oil plantations while taking into account of several aspects such as oil palm tree maturity, plantation and mill carbon and water footprints, deforestation and planting costs.

Speaker

Viknesh Andiappan, Assistant Professor, Heriot-Watt University Malaysia

Dr Viknesh Andiappan is an Assistant Professor at Heriot-Watt University, Malaysia. In 2013, he was the recipient of the Dean PhD Research Scholarship at The University of Nottingham, Malaysia Campus. He completed his PhD the within two and half years in 2016. In 2017, he obtained CEng certification and is currently a chartered member of IChemE.

Dr Andiappan is currently involved in a joint collaborative effort between Heriot-Watt University, Taylor’s University and De La Salle University to develop systematic tools for sustainable palm oil plantation planning. His area of specialisation centres on the development of systematic design approaches for biomass energy systems. In particular, his research aims to integrate process design and operational considerations simultaneously to synthesise biomass energy systems. His research interests also include process synthesis and analysis of energy systems, synthesis of integrated biorefineries, process simulation, industrial symbiosis planning and energy planning for greenhouse gas emission reduction.

Dr Andiappan is well-published and well-cited for a young researcher (over 27 papers and 5 book chapters with an h-index of 8) and presented more than 16 papers in various conferences since 2014. Dr Andiappan has a strong network of collaborators from Malaysia, Philippines, India, Taiwan, Qatar and United Kingdom.

The material presented has not been peer-reviewed. Any opinions are the presenter’s own and do not necessarily represent those of IChemE or the Palm Oil Processing Special Interest Group. The information is given in good faith but without any liability on the part of IChemE.