Mohd. Fadhzir Ahmad Kamaroddin

Pretreatment of empty palm fruit bunch for production of chemicals via catalytic pyrolysis

The effect of chemical pretreatments using NaOH, H(2)O(2), and Ca(OH)(2) on Empty Palm Fruit Bunches (EPFB) to degrade EPFB lignin before pyrolysis was investigated. Spectrophotometer analysis proved consecutive addition of NaOH and H(2)O(2) decomposed almost 100% of EPFB lignin compared to 44% for the Ca(OH)(2), H(2)O(2) system while NaOH and Ca(OH)(2) used exclusively could not alter lignin much. Next, the pretreated EPFB was catalytically pyrolyzed. Experimental results indicated the phenolic yields over Al-MCM-41 and HZSM-5 catalysts were 90 wt% and 80 wt%, respectively compared to 67 wt% yield for the untreated sample under the same set of conditions. Meanwhile, the experiments with HY zeolite yielded 70 wt% phenols.

Effects of the Heat Carrier’s Temperature and Particle Size on the Pyrolysis of Imperata cylindrica in a Transported Bed Reactor

The pyrolysis of Imperata Cylindrica in a transported bed reactor has been carried out using sand as heat carrier. This study is to determine the significant effect of the pyrolysis process condition for heat carrier temperature and particle size on the liquid yield and bio oil properties. Physical and chemical properties of bio-oil such as the water content, pH, viscosity and density were determined. The results showed that the heat carrier’s temperature highly affected the liquid product, yielding 2.30 to 11.89 wt.% in increasing the temperature from 450 to 600°C. The yield increased with larger particle size with 0.375 mm diameter gives maximum yield of 11.88 wt.% (600°C) but decreased gradually until 0.650 mm diameter afterwards.