Temu, Stella G.Mshandete, Anthony M.Kivaisi, Amelia K.2016-05-172016-05-172013Temu, S.G., Mshandete, A.M. and Kivaisi, A.K., 2013. Tanzania Palm Oil Industry: Auditing and Characterization of Oil Palm Wastes Potential Bioresource for Valorization. Journal of Chemical, Biological and Physical Sciences (JCBPS), 4(1), p.804.http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11810/2095Valorization, the combination of conversion processes of biomass into valuable biobased products, is a basis of bioeconomy, which is emerging globally. Tanzania has a huge potential in biomass production potential for valorization currently hardly or inefficiently used resulting into environmental pollution problems and bioresource wastage. A waste audit case study was conducted for palm oil extraction wastes generated by smallholder farmers in Kigoma Tanzania to evaluate their potential for valorization by integrating quantitative with qualitative methods and laboratory analysis. Results showed that annual generation of fresh oil palmpost-harvest wastes was estimated at 100,250 tones and palm oil processing wastes was estimated at 132,709 tons of solid waste and 1.54 x 108 m3 of wastewater. The wastewater was high strength with a total chemical oxygen demand of 50,000 mg/l and biological oxygen demand of 40,000 mg/l. The chemical composition profile (mg/l) of the wastewater included 5.93 phosphorous, 6.9 phosphate, 4.3 ammonia, 13.59 nitrate, 18.4 organic nitrogen, a pH of 3.78 and a conductivity of 1.6 Mv. Percent nitrogen contents of the solid waste fractions including palm fronts, palm press fibers, palm kernels, empty fruit bunches and palm kernel cake ranged between 0.5-0.8 and their phosphorus content ranged between 0.12- 0.34 mg/100g. In conclusion, on the basis of the established characteristics, palm oil wastes represent amongst renewable biological resource,which can be transformed into food, feed, bio-based products and bio-energy via innovative and efficient bioconversion technologies in an integrated and sustainable manner. An innovative approach for the utilization of the waste for integrated production of edible mushrooms and biogas was proposed.enPost harvest wasteProcessing wastesCharacterizationUtilizationManagementJournal Article, Peer Reviewed