Bio-oil and bio-char production from palm by-products in a fluidized bed reactor

There is an increasing interest for biomass due to its potential use as renewable resources. In many countries, biomass conversion has been researched extensively to replace fossil fuels. Currently, Malaysia utilizes a lot of biomass fuels, such as palm oil, which account for 16% of its total energy consumption. As Malaysia is one of the world's largest producers of palm oil, the oil palm industry also generates huge amount of biomass by-products such as frond, shell, bunch, fiber and trunk. These may be used as feedstock to produce second-generation biofuel. In this research, palm by-products were converted to bio-oil and bio-char by pyrolysis. Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) results showed that palm by-products were mostly decomposed at the temperature range of 300âÂ, and 370âÂ,Â. In general, 25% of palm by-products were converted to bio-char. Furthermore, α-D-Allose and fatty acids were main components of bio-oil. The surface area of the solid products were in the range of 170-200m²/g depending on pyrolysis conditions.