Conference Publications

Permanent URI for this collection

https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14170/193

Browse

Browsing Conference Publications by Author "A N Awang"
  • Publication
    Thermal pyrolysis of empty fruit bunch (EFB) in a vertical fixed-bed reactor
    (IOP Publishing, 2020)
    Alina Rahayu Mohamed
    ;
    A N Awang
    ;
    Noor Hasyierah Mohd Salleh
    ;
    R Badlishah Ahmad
    In the production of crude palm oil, huge quantities of solid biomass waste is generated such as empty fruit bunch (EFB), palm fronds and palm–pressed fibre (PPF). This inevitably resulted in the environmental pollution due to its natural conversion to methane. In this study, thermal pyrolysis of EFB was conducted using a fixed bed reactor. The factors such as nitrogen gas flowrate and holding time that affect the distribution of pyrolysis product yields were being investigated by evaluating the percentage product yields. It was determined that at nitrogen gas flowrate of 300 cm3/min and 30 mins holding time, the maximum bio-oil yield of 46.20 % was attained with gas and char yield of 21.79 % and 32.01 % respectively. The existence of functional groups in bio-oil was analyzed by Fourier Transfrom Infra-Red (FTIR) spectroscopy. It was identified that the bio-oil has several functional groups such as hydroxyl (OH), ketone/aldehyde (C=O) and ester (O-C=O) groups. The dynamic viscoscity of bio-oil was analyzed by Brookfield viscometer. It showed that the viscosity of bio-oil decreased with increasing temperature from 25-50 °C.
  • Publication
    Torrefaction of Leucaena Leucocephala in a fixed-bed reactor
    (IOP Publishing, 2020)
    A N Awang
    ;
    Alina Rahayu Mohamed
    ;
    Noor Hasyierah Mohd Salleh
    Raw biomass contained low energy and high moisture content which contributed to its limitation as energy source. However, the biomass properties can be improved via torrefaction method. Torrefaction is a biomass pretreatment method that is performed between 200-300 C using slow heating rate in an inert condition. In this study, Leucaena Leucocephala (Leucaena) was torrefied in a fixed-bed reactor at 20 C/min from 200-300 C at holding times of 20 min. The changes in the elemental and chemical properties of Leucaena were studied using a few methods of analysis such as proximate, elemental analysis and fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectrophotometer. When the torrefaction temperature was increased from 200 to 300 C, the oxygen to carbon (O/C) and hydrogen to carbon (H/C) ratio of torrefied Leucaena reduced significantly. From FTIR, the broad peak at wavenumber of approximately 3400 cm-1 due to the presence of OH group reduced in its intensity upon increasing torrefaction temperature from 200 to 300 C which indicated that the degree of hydrophobicity of torrefied Leucaena had improved.
      2  13