Thermogravimetric analysis of palm oil wastes decomposition

Thermal decomposition of palm oil wastes i.e. palm kernel shell (PKS) and palm oil fronds (POF) was studied using thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) under non-isothermal conditions. Thermogravimetric (TG) and its first derivative profiles were depicted to show different breakdown regions for PKS and POF. The decomposition region of hemicellulose, cellulose and lignin was identified. Kinetic parameters i.e. activation energy, pre-exponential factor and order of reaction were then evaluated from the profiles for the temperature range of 50–900°C at a heating rate of 20 °C/min. Nearly 60 wt% of palm oil wastes decomposed at the temperature less than 400 °C. The thermal decomposition of palm oil wastes fitted well as first order kinetics with correlation coefficient of R2 > 0.99. The activation energy of PKS and POF was 35 and 41 kJ/mol, respectively. This fundamental study provides the basic information on palm oil wastes decomposition which can benefit our current development work on palm oil wastes steam gasification unit.