From waste to food: optimising the breakdown of oil palm waste to provide substrate for insects farmed as animal feed
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Waste biomass from the palm oil industry is currently burned as a means of disposal and solutions are required to reduce the environmental impact. Whilst some waste biomass can be recycled to provide green energy such as biogas, this investigation aimed to optimise experimental conditions for recycling palm waste into substrate for insects, farmed as a sustainable high-protein animal feed. NMR spectroscopy and LC-HRMS were used to analyse the composition of palm empty fruit bunches (EFB) under experimental conditions optimised to produce nutritious substrate rather than biogas. Statistical pattern recognition techniques were used to investigate differences in composition for various combinations of pre-processing and anaerobic digestion (AD) methods. Pre-processing methods included steaming, pressure cooking, composting, microwaving, and breaking down the EFB using ionic liquids. AD conditions which were modified in combination with pre-processing methods were ratios of EFB:digestate and pH. Results show that the selection of pre-processing method affects the breakdown of the palm waste and subsequently the substrate composition and biogas production. Although large-scale insect feeding trials will be required to determine nutritional content, we found that conditions can be optimised to recycle palm waste for the production of substrate for insect rearing. Pre-processing EFB using ionic liquid before AD at pH6 with a 2:1 digestate:EFB ratio were found to be the best combination of experimental conditions.
Date Issued
2019-11-07
Online Publication Date
2020-04-08T15:53:22Z
Date Acceptance
2019-10-21
ISSN
1932-6203
Publisher
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Journal / Book Title
PLoS One
Volume
14
Issue
11
Copyright Statement
© 2019 Dickinson et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Sponsor
Royal Academy Of Engineering
Identifier
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31697740
PONE-D-19-20889
Grant Number
ERDF1718\1\6
Subjects
Anaerobiosis
Animal Feed
Animals
Biofuels
Feeding Behavior
Insecta
Metabolome
Palm Oil
Principal Component Analysis
Proton Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy
Waste Products
Animals
Feeding Behavior
Waste Products
Anaerobiosis
Principal Component Analysis
Animal Feed
Metabolome
Biofuels
Proton Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy
Palm Oil
Insecta
Anaerobiosis
Animal Feed
Animals
Biofuels
Feeding Behavior
Insecta
Metabolome
Palm Oil
Principal Component Analysis
Proton Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy
Waste Products
General Science & Technology
Publication Status
Published
Country
United States
Article Number
ARTN e0224771
Date Publish Online
2019-11-07