Abstract

Biomass in the form of oil palm shellwas pyrolysed in an externally heated 5 cm diameter, 30 cm high fluidised bed pyrolysis reactorwith nitrogen as the fluidising gas and silica sand as the bed material. The pyrolysis oil wascollected in a series of condenser and ice-cooled collectors. The char was collected separatelywhile the gases were flared. The effects of process conditions, like fluidised bed reactortemperature, feed size and fluidisation gas flow rate on the product yields were studied. Theproduct yields were found to be significantly influenced by the process conditions. Thecomposition of oil was determined at fluidised bed temperature of 500°C at which the liquidproduct yield was maximum. The oil was analysed by Fourier Transform infra-red (FTIR)spectroscopy and gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS) techniques. In addition, thephysical properties of the oil were determined. The results showed that the oil was highlyoxygenated containing a high fraction of phenol-based compounds. Detailed analysis of the oilshowed that there was no concentration of biologically active polycyclic aromatic species in theoil. A brief preliminary economic analysis is presented at the end of the paper (see Appendix). ©1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

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