ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTION

Environmental pollution is the introduction of contaminants into the environment that makes the environment unhealthy for habitation and on the extreme, can harm the ecosystem. The causes of pollution depend on the type of pollution under view.

Air pollution This is the release of polluting chemicals and particulates into the atmosphere. These pollutants makes it unhealthy to breathe in such air. Common air pollutants are sulfur dioxide, chlorofluorocarbons (CFC), carbon monoxide, and nitrogen oxides produced by industry and motor vehicles. When hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxides react to sunlight, smog and photochemical ozone are formed when nitrogen oxides and hydrocarbons react to sunlight.

Water pollution When waste products and potential contaminants are released into river drainage systems and other water bodies making the water unfit or compromising the quality of the water for use by man or habitation of water fauna and flora, we have water pollution.

Soil Contamination occurs when chemicals are released by spill or underground leakage. Among The most significant soil contaminants are hydrocarbons, heavy metals, herbicides, pesticides and chlorinated hydrocarbons.

Radioactive contamination, resulting from 20th century activities in atomic physics, such as nuclear power generation and nuclear weapons research, manufacture and deployment.

Noise pollution, which encompasses roadway noise, aircraft noise, industrial noise as well as high-intensity sonar.

Light pollution, includes light trespass, over-illumination and astronomical interference.

Visual pollution, which can refer to the presence of overhead power lines, motorway billboards, scarred landforms , open storage of trash or municipal solid waste.

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Uses Of Plamkernel

Ninety percent of palm oil and its products are used for edible purposes while the remaining 10% is for non-edible applications. Palm oil is obtained from the mesocarp of the palm fruit while palm kernel oil is derived from the flesh of the kernel. Althoughthey come from the same fruit, palm oil and palm kernel oil differ in their physical and chemical characteristics. Palm oil is about 50% saturated and contains mainly palmitic (C16:0) and oleic (C18:1) acids. Palm kernel oil is more than 80% saturated and contains mainly lauric acid (C12:0) (Table 1). Figure 1 shows the numerous food uses and applications of palm oil and palm kernel oil.

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

Palm oil is widely used for industrial frying of snack foods due to its excellent oxidative stability. Being naturally semi-solid, palm oil does not require any hydrogenation and so it is a good choice for the manufacture of semisolid products such as shortenings, vanaspati and margarines. Palm oil stabilises the product in beta prime form, which is required for good texture and good creaming and baking performance. Palm kernel oil, either on its own or in combination with palm oil derivatives are widely used in the manufactures of specialty fats and imitation dairy products.

COOKING AND FRYING OIL/FAT

Palm oil and palm olein continue to be the main source of frying oils in the food industry, globally. They are widely used for industrial frying of snack foods due to their excellent oxidative stability. They contain only a trace of the unstable linolenic acid and a moderate amount of the more stable linoleic acid (10-12%). They have a long shelf life due to the presence of vitamin E, a powerful natural antioxidant. Palm olein is used both industrially and in the homes as a frying and cooking oil. Palm olein produces less smoking, less foaming and does not polymerize to gums compared to polyunsaturated oils.

Save Our Forest

Everyone in the world would do well to know how to prevent deforestation. The profound effects of deforestation on the world are getting increasingly worse. More and more natural disasters are occurring every year, in all parts of the world. The tsunami in Phuket, the disastrous, devastating effects of Hurricane Katrina, and dozens of other disasters have left the communities they touch in ruins. Not so long ago, it seemed like we only needed to worry about deforestation in the rain forest. Now, however, it is occurring in every imaginable location. Trees and vegetation are being destroyed to make room for housing and businesses. The far reaching implications of this occurrence are almost too horrible to even consider  but we must, for the sake of our environment.

Every person can do his or her part to prevent deforestation. Doing so is surprisingly simple. Every individual gesture helps; the gesture may seem small right now, but each one is like a ripple in a pond, which grows larger and larger. In order to neutralise a negative event, one must counter it with a positive one. To counteract the removal of trees, simply plant some more. Doing this in the yard of one's own home can have a hugely positive effect. It also makes life healthier. After all, every tree, big or small, gives off oxygen. Trees also contain water, which guards and protects against soil erosion.

Naturally, recycling does wonders too. Quite a lot of things most people use in their day to day lives can be recycled. This includes books, paper products, shopping bags, bottles, and cans, just to name a few. This prevents the need for raw material to make new products. With paper products, this is especially important, as trees are, of course, used to make paper. Once, recycled paper seemed like a novelty. Now it is a necessity, and even some companies and businesses are using recycled products.

Those who farm the land should consider crop rotation. These means planting new crops in the plot of land from which other crops have recently been harvested. That way, new plots of land need not be used. Crop rotation actually makes for more fertile soil as well.

Sometimes, trees do have to be cut down. However, only mature trees should be cut. Saplings should be left to grow and thrive. It is also an excellent practice to make up for every tree cut down by planting a new tree.

Whenever possible, firewood should not be used to heat the house. Rather, coals are a much more environmentally safe alternative. Firewood is consumed in just a few hours. However, the tree which produced that wood took years to grow to maturity. Conversely, coals can burn for quite a while. They will not only keep the house warmer, they will also be safer for the environment and monumental in preventing deforestation.

Trees have long been a valuable resource. They provide food, oxygen, shade, and beauty. However, although with more and more animals and natural resources every year, they are in danger of disappearing altogether.

Buy Deforested Land, help it regenerate, and protect it from exploitation again forever. You can do something about Global Warming and deforestation right now. The Wild Again Reforestation Trust relies on public donations to purchase deforested land.

Palm Extraction

Research and development work in many disciplines - biochemistry, chemical and mechanical engineering - and the establishment of plantations, which provided the opportunity for large-scale fully mechanised processing, resulted in the evolution of a sequence of processing steps designed to extract, from a harvested oil palm bunch, a high yield of a product of acceptable quality for the international edible oil trade. The oil winning process, in summary, involves the reception of fresh fruit bunches from the plantations, sterilizing and threshing of the bunches to free the palm fruit, mashing the fruit and pressing out the crude palm oil. The crude oil is further treated to purify and dry it for storage and export.
Large-scale plants, featuring all stages required to produce palm oil to international standards, are generally handling from 3 to 60 tonnes of FFB/hr. The large installations have mechanical handling systems (bucket and screw conveyers, pumps and pipelines) and operate continuously, depending on the availability of FFB. Boilers, fuelled by fibre and shell, produce superheated steam, used to generate electricity through turbine generators. The lower pressure steam from the turbine is used for heating purposes throughout the factory. Most processing operations are automatically controlled and routine sampling and analysis by process control laboratories ensure smooth, efficient operation. Although such large installations are capital intensive, extraction rates of 23 - 24 percent palm oil per bunch can be achieved from good quality Tenera.
Conversion of crude palm oil to refined oil involves removal of the products of hydrolysis and oxidation, colour and flavour. After refining, the oil may be separated (fractionated) into liquid and solid phases by thermo-mechanical means (controlled cooling, crystallization, and filtering), and the liquid fraction (olein) is used extensively as a liquid cooking oil in tropical climates, competing successfully with the more expensive groundnut, corn, and sunflower oils.
Extraction of oil from the palm kernels is generally separate from palm oil extraction, and will often be carried out in mills that process other oilseeds (such as groundnuts, rapeseed, cottonseed, shea nuts or copra). The stages in this process comprise grinding the kernels into small particles, heating (cooking), and extracting the oil using an oilseed expeller or petroleum-derived solvent. The oil then requires clarification in a filter press or by sedimentation. Extraction is a well-established industry, with large numbers of international manufacturers able to offer equipment that can process from 10 kg to several tonnes per hour.
Alongside the development of these large-scale fully mechanised oil palm mills and their installation in plantations supplying the international edible oil refining industry, small-scale village and artisanal processing has continued in Africa. Ventures range in throughput from a few hundred kilograms up to 8 tonnes FFB per day and supply crude oil to the domestic market.
Efforts to mechanise and improve traditional manual procedures have been undertaken by research bodies, development agencies, and private sector engineering companies, but these activities have been piecemeal and uncoordinated. They have generally concentrated on removing the tedium and drudgery from the mashing or pounding stage (digestion), and improving the efficiency of oil extraction. Small mechanical, motorised digesters (mainly scaled-down but unheated versions of the large-scale units described above), have been developed in most oil palm cultivating African countries.
Palm oil processors of all sizes go through these unit operational stages. They differ in the level of mechanisation of each unit operation and the interconnecting materials transfer mechanisms that make the system batch or continuous. The scale of operations differs at the level of process and product quality control that may be achieved by the method of mechanisation adopted. The technical terms referred to in the diagram above will be described later.