| Summary: | The modern technology nowadays has led to a high consumption of energy where renewable energy sources become one of the hottest topics among the scientists. Biomass, as one of the promising renewable energy sources become the most attractive energy source in the world. Hence, this study aims to produce the high quality of torrefied oil palm biomass for efficient energy application. Torrefaction is known as the mild form of pyrolysis where the process occurs at atmospheric pressure and the temperature ranging of 473-573 K with the absence of oxygen. The raw materials selected for the study are the empty fruit bunch (EFB), mesocarp fiber and the kernel shell. The main reason of selected oil palm waste as the biomass raw material is due to its availability as Malaysia is the second largest producer of palm oil in the world. The experiment was carried out by using a tubular reactor which was located at the Gas Engineering Lab of University Malaysia Pahang. Results obtained showed that the powder form of all the samples have fully decomposed after torrefaction process, hence, the experiment was carried on with the fibrous form of samples for a better scale of study. The calorific value (CV) determined using a bomb calorimeter and the result collected showed a trend of increased in CV for all the samples started from EFB to kernel shell as the temperature increased. While for the case of mass yield, the trend was decreased for all the samples when the temperature increased along the torrefaction process. This was due to the thermal decomposition of the structure of samples during the experiment. This had directly affected the trend of energy yield by all the samples as the optimization of energy yield was not achieved at 100% except for kernel shell at 523K and 573K. Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) test was also carried out in order to determine the component and chemical compositions which existed before and after the experiment, and results showed that the structure of the samples was mainly remain the same after the process
|
|---|