Abstract
Hydrothermal Liquefaction (HTL) process is an alternative way for converting biomass to bio-fuels product. The aim of this study was to determine the effect of sample’s mass and heating time on the product yield (wt%) from palm kernel shells (PKS) and to characterize the bio-oil as produced. PKS which is one kind of biomass efficiently converted to bio-oil, bi-char and bio-gas by HTL associated with modified microwave oven. A modified household microwave oven with 800W was employed in this process. The product yield was increased proportionally with the sample mass from 31.16 wt% to 41.92 wt% for bio-oil at constant time of 15 minutes. However, a vice versa trend was observed for bio char. Furthermore, it was exhibited that the highest value of 66.51 wt% and then it reduced to 42.17 wt%. The last product, bio gas shows an increasing trend from 2.32wt% to 15.90wt%. For the second parameter, the production of bio oil decreases with the increasing of heating time while bio char and bio gas increases with the increases of time. For the highest product yield, the calorific value is 37.68 MJ/kg for 15g sample and 22.32 MJ/kg for 35g sample at 15 minutes heating time. Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) result reveals that multiple functional groups i.e. alcohol, aldehydes, carboxylic acid and ketones is present in the PKS bio oil. Additionally, the pH value of the bio oil was in the range of 2-3.
Extraction of bio-oil during pyrolysis of locally sourced palm kernel shells: Effect of process parameters
