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ABSTRACT
Thousands of tonnes of Oil Palm Trunk (OPT) will be produced annually in Malaysia. This has a significant
effect on the environment, particularly due to the green house gas (GHG) that are released during the
decomposition of OPT. OPT was pyrolysed at temperature ranges from 200oC to 600oC with heating rate of
10oC/min. The char yield decreased rapidly with increasing pyrolysis temperature up to 300oC. Above 300oC,
the char yield decreased proportionately as the temperature increases. However, the gas yield (includes the loss
of fine oil droplets) showed the opposite trend, it increases with increasing reactor temperature. The oil
production showed the same trend as gases but the proportions are much lower. The highest percentage of oil
produced was at 600oC. At the temperature of 200oC, there was no significant effect on the distribution of the
production of liquid, char and gases. It may be because of not enough energy to break down the higher
molecules to the smallest one. The study on the effect of particle size on products distribution showed that, there
was no major effect on product yields between particles size of 0.25mm to 2.0mm. Gas Chromatography-Mass
Spectroscopy (GC-MS) result showed that the highest percentage of compound present in the liquid oil was in
the order of Heptadecane (20.6%), Nonacosane (18.2%), Tetracosane (14.8%), Octadecane (14.3%), Decosane
(14.3%), 11-butyl (14.3%), Heptacosane (5.2%), Hexacosane (3.3%), Tetratetracontane (3.3%) and Phenol
(1.6%).
1. INTRODUCTION
Biomass is an important contributor to the world economy. Malaysia is the largest producer and
exporter of palm oil in the world with market share of about 50 and 58 percent, respectively (Mohd Nasir,
2003). In 1997, Malaysia produced about 13.2 million tones of oil palm biomass including trunk, fronds, and
empty fruit bunches (Kamaruddin et.al., 1997). Agriculture and forest products industries provide food, feed,
fiber, and a wide range of necessary products like shelter, packaging, clothing, and communications. However,
biomass is also a source of a large variety of chemicals and materials, and of electricity and fuels (Chum and
Overend, 2001). In developing countries, the use of biomass is of high interest, since these countries have
economies largely based on agriculture and forestry (Sensoz et. al., 2006). The use of these materials will
depend on the state of the art of safe and economic technologies able to transform them into manageable
products (Bridgwater, 1999). In this way, thermochemical biomass conversion processes such as pyrolysis,
gasification and liquefaction are the most appropriate (Encinar et al., 1995). In thermal conversion, combustion
is already widely practised. Whereas, gasification attracts a high level of interest as it offers higher efficiencies
compared to combustion. However, fast pyrolysis is interesting because liquid are produced and this offers
advantages in terms of storage, transportation and versatility in applications, even though it is still at a relatively
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early stage of its development (Bridgwater, 2004). The products and applications of these thermal conversion
processes are summarised in Figure 1.
Electricity
Engine
The biomass sample used in this study was Oil Palm Trunk (OPT) obtained from an oil palm farm at
Kampung Tanjung Berembang, Pulau Pinang, Malaysia. The proximate and ultimate analysis of the OPT is
presented in Table 1. For the study purposes, five different feedstocks sizes 0.25mm, 0.50mm, 0.75mm, 1.0mm
and 2.0mm were used. The feedstocks were cut into cubic shape, oven dried at 110 overnight and ground prior
to pyrolysis.
The experimental system used was a fixed bed pyrolysis unit (Fig.2). The size of the reactor was 70
mm in diameter and 380 mm in length, constructed of stainless steel with a temperature controller. The reactor
was heated externally and nitrogen gas was supplied to maintain the inert atmosphere in the reactor and also to
drive the pyrolyze vapor product to the condensers. The OPT sample of 150g was loaded in the reactor vessel.
The temperature range for the reactor was 200 – 600 0C. The retention time was fixed for 2 hours in order to
allow the sample to go through a complete pyrolysis process (R. R. R. Deris, 2006). The liquid product was
collected at the liquid collector point. The effect of temperature was analysed by increasing the temperature and
fixing the particle size to determine the optimum condition of product yield. The condensable products (liquid)
were collected in a series of traps maintained at room temperature. These liquid products contained an aqueous
and oil phase, which were weighed and run through GC-MS analysis. The char was also removed from the
reactor and weighed.
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TABLE 1: Proximate and ultimate analyses of OPT
Proximate analysis Wt% Elemental analysis Wt%
Moisture content 5.89 Carbon (C) 40.64
Volatile matter 76.84 Hydrogen (H) 5.09
Fixed carbon 11.42 Nitrogen (N) 2.15
Ash content 5.85 Oxygen (O) 53.12*
Sulfur (S) -
Colorific value (MJ/kg) 17.27
*By difference
EXTRACT CONDENSOR
HEATER 1
DATA LOGGER
WATER
FURNACE
NITROGEN
HEATER 2
To
SAMPLES BOAT
OIL
TEMPERATURE
OIL CONTAINERS CONTROLLER
The solid (Char) yield decreased rapidly from 90 wt% (at temperature of 200oC) to 42 wt% (at temperature of
300oC). As operating temperature increases from 300oC to 600oC, the char yield decreased slightly from 42 wt%
to 30 wt%.
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The gas (includes the loss of fine oil droplets) result showed an opposite trend of solid yield. It showed a rapid
increase from 10 wt% (at temperature of 200oC) to 42 wt% (at temperature of 300oC). From the temperature of
300oC to 600oC the gas yield showed a gradual increase from 42 wt% to 51.3 wt%.
Proximate Analysis
Ash Content 5.85 25.68
Volatile Content 76.84 30.92
Fixed Carbon 11.42 41.82
Ultimate Analysis
Carbon 40.64 42.68
Hydrogen 5.09 1.79
Nitrogen 2.15 2.48
Oxygen 53.12* 53.05
Sulfur 0.00 0.00
Colorific value (MJ/Kg) 17.27 28.18
*By difference
100.0
90.0
80.0
Product yields (wt%)
70.0
60.0
50.0
40.0
30.0
20.0
10.0
0.0
200 300 400 500 600
Temperature (oC)
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Effect of particle sizes on product distributions
60
50
30
20
10
0
0.00 0.25 0.50 0.75 1.00 1.25 1.50 1.75 2.00 2.25
Particle size
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Conclusion
Oil palm trunk was successfully converted into bio-oil, char and gas by means of pyrolysis. The liquid
product was maximum (18.7 wt% of OPT feedstock) at a reactor temperature of 600oC with particle size of 2
mm. Distribution of products was not affected by the size of feedstock. GC-MS analyses have shown that
carboxylic acid, phenol, alcohol and branched oxygenated hydrocarbon are the main compounds of bio-oil.
Based on observation, there was significant amount of water contained in the liquid products. Therefore, it needs
to be removed for biofuel production or chemical feedstock.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the University Teknologi MARA (UiTM), for giving the opportunity and
providing the facilities to successfully perform this study.
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