Biofuels for use in on-road transportation have been promoted in Thailand over the past decade to reduce dependence on imported fossil resources as well as possibly reducing greenhouse gas emissions. This has led to an increase in production of biodiesel which is produced from palm oil. However, as palm oil is also used for food, it is important to take this into consideration as well. Also, oil palm cultivation is rather water-intensive. Hence, it is necessary to analyze the interlinkage between water, food, and energy to have a holistic understanding and prevent trade-offs when addressing one issue in isolation. The water-energy-food nexus for oil palm cultivation in Thailand has been conducted following two widely used methods, the Water-Food-Energy Nexus (WFEN) and Water-Energy-Food (WEF) nexus assessment method. The results are demonstrated as a single score, which is easier for suggesting a suitable area for oil palm plantation. The assessment indicates the southern region of Thailand is the most suitable for oil palm plantation. The recommendation is consistent with the suggestion of the government, based on land and climate suitability. However, this study considers more comprehensive aspects including various other environmental aspects. Oil palm cultivation mainly relates to the amount of freshwater consumption, leading to the increment of fuel consumption for pumping water. On the other hand, the effectiveness of fresh fruit bunch yield (for food and energy production) should be developed in the future. Besides, the results recommend the central region for the expansion of oil palm cultivation in the future because of the availability of a good irrigation infrastructure.

The objective of this research was to study the effect of water activity and glass transition temperature on the fat hydrolysis in a food model system. The model system was prepared with tapioca starch, casein, palm oil and sugar as 58, 14, 16 and 12 g/100 g model matrix, respectively. Hydrolysis reaction was accelerated bycommercial lipase at six levels of water content and water activity. Moisture sorption isotherm was obtained using isopiestic method while monolayer value was determined by BET equations. Glass transition temperature was determined from amorphous ingredients of starch and casein. Hydrolysis reaction showed a significantincrease above the monolayer value at 3.55 g water/100 g solid and aw 0.19. Hydrolysis occurred even at the glassy state of the model system. The role of water in the hydrolysis reaction is more related to the water activity concept rather than glass transition concept.

Palm oil mill effluent (POME) elimination has been considered recently as the alternative to expensive biogas recovery to conquer environmental criticisms in the palm oil industry involving the release of biogas (i.e., a primary contributor towards climate change), during POME treatment. With POME elimination and mill-refinery integration considered, the integrated palm oil-based complex (POBC) serves as an appropriate system for sustainable food-energy-water (FEW) nexus evaluations. In this respect, multi-objective optimisation and debottlenecking of POBC has been suggested to address the economic and environmental trade-offs in palm oil mill (POM) for cleaner production. In this study, a stepwise debottlenecking framework was proposed to include previous fuzzy multi-objective optimisation approach and a new debottlenecking method to improve the fuzzy optimal POBC design and evaluate the impact of process on FEW nexus contributions. Each process creates distinctive impact or influence on the POBC performance. Shapley-Shubik Power Index (SSI) has been applied in the notion of power for yes-no voting systems. By evaluating the operate-fail possibilities of internal processes, SSI can be utilised to allocate the power of each process in achieving or failing the POBC performance target, prior to identifying the system bottleneck (SB) in terms of process stage. Therefore, a novel process-level debottlenecking approach with SSI incorporation for a sustainable FEW system was proposed. The SB of greatest impact on overall POBC performance within the fuzzy optimal flowsheet was identified based on SSI allocation and weightage assignment considering decision-maker's interest in multiple goals. Subsequently, the debottlenecked POBC flowsheet with improvement in SB process parameter was generated subjected to profit maximisation and environmental constraints. In this study, the nut/kernel separation and biomass cogeneration system was identified as the SB of fuzzy optimal POBC. The debottlenecked results show 0.8% and 51% of profit and net energy improvement upon 30% increment of boiler efficiency. The debottlenecked flowsheet is validated in the benefit-to-drawback ratio analysis with a feasible score of 3.9. The POME-eliminated POBC generated via the integrated multi-objective optimisation and debottlenecking framework is applicable for POM retrofit to secure 13%, 97% and 47% of improvements in terms of economic potential, greenhouse gas emissions and water footprint compared to the status quo biogas utilisation scenario. The results of the study could aid palm oil holders in real-life planning of budget distribution and maintenance schedule for process stages in the retrofitted POM.

The challenge in clean palm oil production falls on the management of palm oil mill effluent which is a notable source of greenhouse gas emissions and water pollution. To address these critics against edible palm oil, an integrated palm oil-based complex (POBC) considering effluent elimination and refinery integration is suitable for environmental-food-energy-water (EFEW) nexus development. Optimal retrofit of palm oil mill into EFEW nexus-integrated POBC requires multi-objective considerations to balance the trade-offs between profitability, energy contribution, greenhouse gas, water and land footprints via fuzzy optimisation. With limited practical knowledge, potential flowsheet modifications should be investigated for flexible POBC design. In a cooperative game context, interconnecting processes act as multiple players cooperating to achieve the goal of the game, i.e., POBC performance, where each player has a distinctive impact on the outcome. In this work, such process performance was suggested to be distributed using cooperative game model, to target the EFEW-based anchor process, i.e., the process stage of greatest contribution in the weighted EFEW nexus, for desired flowsheet advancement. Considering these aspects, an integrated fuzzy and cooperative game optimisation framework was developed to identify the anchor process of an EFEW nexus-integrated POBC. EFEW objective-based process performance allocation in the fuzzy optimal POBC was weighted by the decision-maker to allocate the anchor process using developed models and Excel tools. Nut/kernel separation and cogeneration stage is the EFEW-based anchor process in the fuzzy optimal POBC with EFEW nexus score of 41% in this work. A comparative analysis between the proposed method with other approach was done. The favourability of EFEW contributions by POBC in terms of benefit-drawback ratio increased with the percentage of boiler efficiency increment within the targeted anchor process. Targeting anchor process aids planning for process maintenance and advancement to avoid resource wastage on sub-critical processes.

Report submitted to Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) under the project, "Comparative assessment of water usage and impacts arising from biofuel projects in SOUTHEAST ASIAn Countries?, commissioned by the Letter of Agreement No LOA/RAP/2009/38. Thailand and Malaysia are two SOUTHEAST ASIAn countries with rapidly growing biofuel demand. Increasing use of biofuel envisages reducing dependence of petroleum products for transport and mitigating environmental impacts by reducing carbon emissions. It also expects to contribute to rural development and poverty reduction. However, the impacts of expanding production of feedstock for biofuel on water supply are not well understood. This paper assesses the water footprints and impacts of sugarcane molasses and cassava based bioethanol in Thailand, and palm oil based biodiesel in Malaysia. The water footprint of a commodity or service is the water depleted in its life cycle of its production or consumption. The total water footprints of sugarcane molasses and cassava bioethanol production in Thailand are estimated to be 1,646 and 2,304 m3/tonne, respectively, and of palm oil biodiesel in Malaysia is 3,730 m3/tonne. However, the contributions from irrigation are only a small fraction --9.0, 0.7 and 0.3%-- of the total water footprints of molasses and cassava bioethanol, and palm oil biodiesel respectively. In terms of irrigation water use,cassava is a better feedstock for bioethanol production than sugarcane molasses. In Thailand, the total annual irrigation water footprints in bioethanol production --54 million m3 (mcm) for molasses and 15 mcm for cassava-- is only 0.02% of the total renewable water resources. In Malaysia, total annual irrigation water footprint of palm oil biodiesel production is only 0.001% of the total renewable water resources. A significant spatial variation of irrigation water footprints of molasses based ethanol exists across provinces in Thailand, indicating potential for reducing water footprints. The total irrigation water footprints in biofuel production in the future in both countries will also be negligible in comparison to total water availability. However, the impact of wastewater generated in the production processes can have significant impacts on quality of local water resources. A part of the waste water, called 'spent wash', is applied as fertilizer, and over use of it can affect soil and neighboring water resources. The proposed plans on biofuel production in the future can generate more 'spent wash' than that can be used in crop fields as fertilizer. Spent wash has found to have high PH value, temperature, biological and chemical oxygen contents etc. The usual practice of storing spent wash in a pond for a long period near a plant can have detrimental impact on soil, streams' and groundwater quality. In sum, this study concludes that from the perspective of quantity of irrigation water use, the increasing biofuel production does not pose a major problem in Thailand or in Malaysia, and cassava is a better feedstock than sugarcane molasses for bioethanol production. However, the quality of water resources with increasing effluents generated by the biofuel plants could be a major environmental bottleneck to guard against.