PALMOILMAGAZINE, CIBINONG – The Indonesian government continues to enhance the production of key commodities such as paddy and palm oil. However, this effort is also focused on managing agro-industrial waste.
Annually, Indonesia generates over 10 tons of paddy husk from milling and two million tons of boiler ash from palm oil mills. These by-products are now being converted into economic biosilica.
Hoerudin, a researcher at the Pusat Riset Agroindustri (PRA) of the National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN), explained that both paddy husks and palm oil boiler ash are rich in silica (SiO2), with concentrations of about 15-20% and 50-60%, respectively. Silica produced by living organisms, like plants, is known as biosilica.
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“In a harvest of 5 tons of paddy per hectare and 20 tons of fresh fruit bunches (FFB), approximately 230 kilograms of silica from paddy and 154 kilograms from FFB are included in the harvest. This amount of silica is comparable to the dosage of macro fertilizers used,” Hoerudin noted during the webinar “Biogenic Silica from Industrial Wastes: From Ash to Cash” on Friday, July 19.
PRA developed some research products of biosilica, for instance, liquid and powder biosilica in paddy husk and palm oil boiler ash – base in nano particles. Liquid bosilica is more effective as liquid fertilizer because the plants would be easier to absorb. Until now liquid biosilica has been tested in 22 provinces in Indonesia for paddy, onion, and sugarcane.
Hoerudin also mentioned biosilica has kinds of application potential, such as, as fertilziers, pesticide, functional textile, substituting chrome in skin tannery, and even as the alternative to bone substitution graft material in dentistry.
Developing biosilica production from agro-industrial wastes to be more environmental products than it from mining materials, such as, quarts which are not renewable would spen much energy in the production. This would help Indonesia to minimize commercial silica imports which keep increasing.
Head of Agriculture and Food Reearch Organization, BRIN, Puji Lestari said that paddy and palm oil absorbed and had silica in big numbers. That is why the increasing production and wastes should be processed to get more economical values to minimize environmental and social potential issues because of the piling wastes.
“BRIN through PRA would always keep biosilica production research from other agro-industrial wastes and cooperate with some industries to develop agrochemical products and environmental rubber sole in biosilica – base. The cooperation covered the research to product commercial,” Puji said. (P2)
