(57bx) Evaluating the Safety and Environmental Performance of a Crude Palm Oil Plant Using HIRA and TRACI Methodologies

Palm oil processing is one of the most dynamic economic activities in Colombia due to its high productivity for crude oil extraction. The crude palm oil (CPO) extraction from fresh fruit bunches requires processing stages (e.g. sterilization, threshing, digestion, pressing, clarification and drying) that may generate by-products or wastes impacting negatively the environment. The emissions of these chemical substances to air, soil or water media can be quantified to determine the environmental impacts of CPO production. To this end, the Tool for the Reduction and Assessment of Chemical and other Environmental Impacts (TRACI) was used for a better understanding of environment/human health related issues during oil extraction. In addition, potential hazards were determined through Hazard Identification and Ranking (HIRA) methodology in order to identify the most critical units and propose relevant safety corrections. The environmental assessment revealed highest impacts in the category of freshwater ecotoxicity for natural and agricultural soil emissions (0.2509 CTUeco/kg CPO). The human health particulate for air emissions reported value of 7.64x10^-4 PM 2.5 eq/kg CPO indicating an environmentally-friendly performance for the selected case study. Process safety assessment showed risks of fire and explosion due to emissions of combustible dust and handling flammable materials. For most of the studied units, FEDI achieved values above 400, which correspond to highly hazardous category. The novelty of this work lies in: i) detecting environmental and safety issues that need to be addressed, ii) providing insights for process improvements to move towards sustainable CPO production by incorporating safety and environmental aspects.