Characterization of Various Biomass Sources for Co-Gasification

• Main Author: Razak, Mohamad Amin
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS 2010
• Subjects: TJ Mechanical engineering and machinery
• Online Access: http://utpedia.utp.edu.my/8073/1/2010%20-%20Characterization%20of%20various%20biomass%20sources%20for%20co-gasification.pdf; http://utpedia.utp.edu.my/8073/

Issues on the fast depletion of fossil fuel and lots of problem especially on the global warming phenomena had become a crucial discussion in this century. These situations have prompted many developed and developing country to find alternative energy sources which are renewable and environmental friendly. Biomass is seen as having a big potential to develop especially in Malaysia due to abundance supply of biomass sources. Biomass energy, or bio-energy, is the energy stored in non-fossil organic materials. Gasification is one of the techniques in Thermo-chemical Process which is a process of conversion of solid carbonaceous fuel into combustible gas by partial combustion. Malaysia has recently ventured into usage of biomass energy and most of the biomass based plants in Malaysia use sources from oil palm cultivation residue. However, there may be some situations that these sources fail to fulfil the increasing energy demand. With that, some of the back-up sources are crucial that the biomass based plant will not stop the production. Malaysia also has very substantial potential for biomass energy utilization given its equatorial climate that is ideal for dense tropical forest growth and agricultural vegetation. However, there is lack of study is done toward all of these resources since most biomass power plant in Malaysia just using residue from oil palm sector. The objectives of the present project are study the characteristic of several potential biomass sources in Malaysia by mean of its chemical and physical properties and to study on suitability of mixing two or more biomass feed in gasifier. This study also aimed on a study on suitability of one gasifier to handle different biomass at different time. Four experiments had conducted which is calorific test, CHNS analysis, proximate analysis and bulk density test. All of the experiments were conducted to evaluate the chemical and physical properties of samples so that characterization of the samples can be made. The result of this project can be conclude that three type of samples which are weed, dry leave-A and coconut fibre have a potential to be develop as biomass feed stock since having a good calorific value, a good carbon, sulphur and nitrogen content and a good bulk density value.