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Palm Oil Fuel Ash (POFA) is a biomass produced from palm oil industries. POFA is known to contain a high amount of silica and has been proven by XRF spectroscopy, in which the silicon dioxide content is 72.63%. In this study, silica was synthesised from POFA. To extract the silica, POFA was fused with alkaline agent (Na2CO3) before mixing with Cethyltrimetyl Ammonium Bromide (CTAB) and Sulphuric Acid (H2SO4). Sodium silicate solution from the fusion was used as silica precursor replacing conventionally used silica source, Tetraethoxilane (TEOS). XRD pattern showed that raw POFA dominantly consists of silica. Meanwhile, FTIR analysis of the synthesised silica exhibited spectra bands at 3393 cm-1, 1635 cm-1, 1028 cm-1 and 787 cm-1 that corresponded to the functional groups of Si-O and O-H. Thus, it could be concluded that silica was successfully extracted from POFA by the alkaline fusion method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study proposes a new method to evaluate the performance of palm oil extraction based on Predictive Scoring Index methodology. The variables, Oil Extraction Rate (OER) and Oil Loss (OL), were identified as important to develop a new extraction index based on three different steriliser systems. There were six performance categories: Excellent, Very Good, Good, Average, Poor and Very Poor. Based on 75 selected palm oil mills data from 2009-2013, Continuous Sterilizer (CS) system and Conventional Sterilizer (CV) system recorded 2.7% and 1.3% respectively under the Excellent category. The Compact Modular Concept (CMC) system only recorded 'Very Good' (20%) and 'Good' (13.3%). This study showed that EPI could be used to monitor palm oil extraction performance to ensure maximum oil extraction and minimum losses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]