Evaluation of peat soils as an alternative fuel

• Main Author: Ng, M.C.H
• Format: Final Year Project Report
• Language: English; English
• Published: Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, UNIMAS 2010
• Subjects: GE Environmental Sciences
• Online Access: http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/4579/1/Evaluation%20of%20Peat%20Soil%20as%20an%20Alternative%20Fuel%20%2824pgs%29.pdf; http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/4579/8/Evaluation%20of%20peat%20soil%20as%20an%20alternative%20fuel%20%28fulltext%29.pdf; http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/4579/

Fossil fuel depletion is one of the major concerns of everyone in the world right now. As time passes by, more and more fossil fuels are consumed each day as people progress in their daily lives. From small businesses to large economies, the long-term availability of energy worldwide is paramount to growth and development. Coal was the fastest growing fossil fuel in the year 2003 to 2008. However, coal which is categorized as fossil fuel will deplete soon if the rate of consumption keeps on rising. Therefore, research is done in many parts of the world to replace the usage of fossil fuel with alternative fuel. In this project, the potential of peat soil as an alternative solid fuel to replace coal is evaluated. The behavior of various admixtures and sizes of pellets to the calorific value of peat pellets are studied in this project. From the experimental result, pure peat pellet has a gross calorific value of 13.3 MJ/kg at operating moisture content of 20%. On the other hand, pellet of peat soil with saw dust admixtures has 3% higher gross calorific value compared to pellet of peat soil with sugar cane admixture at the same amount of ash content. The 10mm diameter pellet of admixtures also promises a better potential as compared to the 8mm diameter pellet. As a conclusion, peat soil has the potential to replace coal as solid fuel in the near future. Improvements can be done to peat soil to further improve the fuel properties of the soil.