Paper details

Title:

Bio-Oil Production from Palm Kernel Shell with Microwave Irradiation

Author(s):

Uemura, Y., Omar, W.N., Razlan, S.B., Yusup, S.B., Onoe, K.

Document(s):

Abstract:

Various thermal and biological treatment processes have been researched for converting biomass to upgraded gas or liquid fuels. Among them, biomass pyrolysis by microwave heating has become of interest in recent years because of its unique mechanism, but it has not yet been thoroughly studied. In this study, palm kernel shell, one of the typical lignocellulosic biomass residues in Malaysia, was pyrolyzed by microwave heating to produce bio­oil as a target product. The byproducts were char and non­condensable gases. The core part of the experimental setup is a microwave irradiation chamber, in which a cylindrical Pyrex reactor of 90 mm in internal diameter and 0.5 L in volume is located. The microwave irradiation is multimode and 2.45 GHz in frequency. The internal size of the chamber is 215 mm in width, 150 mm in height and 120 mm in depth. The Pyrex reactor has an inert gas purge line and a gaseous product exhaust line. The gas and vapor mixture from the exhaust line is separated into liquid and gas at a cold trap maintained at 289 K by a chiller. Using the experimental setup described above, four batch­wise experimental runs were carried out to investigate the effects of temperature and irradiation power, respectively; 573 K and 1kW, 623 K and 1kW, 573 K and 2kW, and 623 K and 2kW, under nitrogen atmosphere. For all the runs, the char was left in the reactor; the liquid product was trapped in the cold trap; the rest (non­condensable gas) was released? through the release line. The liquid product was comprised of a watery upper layer and an oily bottom layer. The calorific value, the CHN content and the ash content were measured for the char and the oily liquid phase (bio­oil). The effects of irradiation power and temperature on the calorific value, the CHN content and the ash content will be reported and discussed in this paper. The calorific value and the CHN content of the char had little dependency on the reaction conditions, including irradiation power or temperature. On the other hand, the bio­oil obtained at 623 K and 1 kW showed the highest calorific value of 26.7 MJ/kg and the highest carbon content of 63.1% among the four samples. This bio­oil showed a 30% higher calorific value than the raw material, kernel shell, which has a calorific value of 19.5 MJ/kg.

Keywords:

lignocellulose, palm, pyrolysis oil, shell, biofuels

Topic:

Biomass Conversion Technologies for Heating, Electricity and Chemicals                  

Subtopic:

Pyrolysis for power, CHP, polygeneration and chemicals

Event:

19th European Biomass Conference and Exhibition

Session:

VP2.5.33

Pages:

1710 - 1714

ISBN-13:

978-88-89407-55-4

ISBN-10:

88-89407-55-7

Paper DOI:

10.5071/19thEUBCE2011-VP2.5.33

Price:

FREE