Production and Characterization of Bio Oil from Bamboo

Abstract

The quest for renewable energy sources have been the major concerns worldwide due to depletion of fossil fuel and ozone layer as a result of fossil fuel combustion. Bio oil or fuel production from different natural plants have been researched over the years in different regions of the world. Thus, this research study focused on production and characterization of bio oil from Nigerian bamboo plant (Ogoni bamboo), which involved fresh bamboo preparation and its pyrolysis and characterization. The fresh bamboo plant was used since it’s not edible unlike other studies that applied edible fruits as source of bio diesel production. The prepared fresh bamboo plant was pyrolysed at a temperature range of 300°C to 600°C and the gaseous products condensed to temperature of 25°C. The applied temperature range was used to evaluate the effect of fast, intermediate and slow pyrolysis, while high yield of bio oil was deduced at 450°C. The produced bio oil was characterized by investigating its density, specific gravity, viscosity with gas chromatography and ASTM distillation D86 analysis carried out on the produced bio oil. The pyrolysis result yielded 59.5wt% of bio oil at reactor bed temperature of 450°C, which is heavy in nature, highly viscous with calorific valuer. Thus, bio oil can be produced from Nigeria bamboo plant as an alternate energy source with further product upgrading process required for effective and commercial use of the produced bamboo bio oil.