PALM NUTSHELL BIOCHAR QUALITY CORRELATION WITH PYROLYSIS RESIDENCE TIME

Abstract

The global warming and climate change caused by the anthropogenic activities is expected to increase. To address these issues, one key solution is the utilization of renewable materials such as biomass. Biochar, made from biomass materials is seen as a potential option to replace the fossil fuel-based reductants. Pyrolysis is the most common way of producing biochar. However, the physicochemical properties of biochar are significantly influenced by virgin biomass characteristics and the pyrolysis condition such as the temperature, heating rate, residence time. This paper investigates the impact of pyrolysis residence time on the biochar quality produced from raw palm nutshells. In this study, all the experiments were performed at 800 -C, while the time from 30, 40, 45, 50 and 60 mins and the particle size of the raw material varied from 5, 8, 12, 15 to 19mm. A correlation between the fixed carbon content and pore size was established. The different biochar produced were further characterized using proximate analysis and SEM-EDS to evaluate the fixed carbon content and study the changes in the biochar microstructure and pore size of each biochar produced.