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CMT's 2nd Palm Oil Africa Explores If Africa is Ready to Emerge as the Next Palm Oil Hub.

CMT's 6th Algae World Asia Resumes in Bangkok This October to Showcase New Vistas.

Mesoporous silica xerogels with wormhole-like pore structure were successfully synthesized using a series of surfactantless oil-in-water emulsion at room temperature. The surfactantless emulsion systems consisted of palm-oil derived fatty alcohols having several carbon chain lengths to act as mesoporous templates in place of commercial surfactants in a direct base–acid catalyzed sol–gel method. This method allowed direct decomposition of fatty alcohols in situ during calcination process to create mesoporosity in the materials. The mesoporous silica xerogels exhibited relatively high surface area at ca. 505 m²/g and pore sizes at ca. 8 nm to 13 nm as the carbon chain lengths were varied. The pore size obtained in this study was larger than the conventional MCM-41 materials (at ca. 2 nm). The mesopores were generated from the interstices of the primary particles (framework-confined porosity) and secondary particles (textural porosity). Furthermore, by changing the co-solvent amount and oil/water ratio, surfactantless oil-in-water microemulsions were obtained. These microemulsions were useful in the synthesis of monodispersed silica spheres. The size of the silica spheres could be controlled at two different size clusters, ca. 50–200 nm and at ca. 500 nm.

Indonesia has introduced a moratorium on the conversion of natural forests to land used for palm oil production. Using a dynamic, bottom-up, interregional computable general equilibrium model of the Indonesian economy, we assess several scenarios of the moratorium and discuss its impacts on the domestic economy as well as on regional economies within Indonesia. We find the moratorium reduces Indonesian economic growth and other macroeconomic indicators, but international transfers can more than compensate the welfare losses. The impacts also vary across regions. Sumatra, which is highly dependent on palm oil and is home to forests that no longer have a high carbon stock, receives fewer transfers and suffers the greatest economic loss. Kalimantan, which is relatively less dependent on palm oil and has forests with a relatively high carbon stock, receives more transfers and gets greater benefit. This implies that additional policy measures anticipating the unbalanced impacts of the moratorium are required if the trade-off between conservation and reducing interregional economic disparity is to be reconciled.