Sterilization of Oil Palm Fresh Fruit Using Microwave Technique

Dramatically increasing rate of free fatty acid (FFA) in long storage oil palm fruit is one of the most crucial problems of oil palm mill industries. The aim of this paper is to study the possibility of oil palm fruits sterilization by using microwave irradiation in order of halting enzymatic lipolysis reaction which caused of FFA production. The results indicate that microwave heating can be interrupted the FFA produced reaction and the optimum condition heating temperature of the fruits mesocarp is 50 °C but not exceed to 80 °C, and the fruits can be storage for 7 days at ambient condition without FFA significantly generation. Conclude that heating from irradiation of microwave is capacitating for dry and clean sterilization system.