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The hydrothermal treatment (HT) has demonstrated the ability to improve fuel characteristics of biomass. On the other hand, the liquid by-product, which potentially contains solubilized nutrient, is being poorly utilized. This paper presents an investigation on HT of empty fruit bunch (EFB) on both solid and liquid product characteristics. In this work, the effects of HT on EFB were investigated at the HT temperatures of 100, 150, 180 and 220°C with the holding time of 30 minutes. The results showed that HT can increase the carbon content, remove up to 55% of ash content from EFB, lowering the potassium and chlorine contents down to 0.84% and 0.18%, respectively. Moreover, maximum of 37% of nitrogen, 65% of potassium and less than 10% of phosphorus in EFB were dissolved into the liquid product which positively correlated with the HT temperature. These results demonstrate the possibility of employing HT for producing solid fuel as well as nutrient recovery from EFB.

Bio-based fertilizers are currently gaining interest as a method for reducing the use of chemical fertilizers and as a means for safe disposal of biomass waste. Feathers, which are an abundantly available biomass and have a high N content, are a potential source of fertilizer nutrients. In this study, chicken feathers were subjected to hydrothermal treatment (HTT) with lime addition in the temperature range of 140-2008C to obtain a high N containing liquid product that can be used as a liquid fertilizer. The objective of this study was to examine the effect of HTT conditions on the feather solubilization rate and the properties of the liquid products. The results showed that HTT with a reaction temperature of 1808C, a reaction time of 30 min, feather-water ratio of 1:5, and lime addition is sufficient to solubilize as high as 83% of the chicken feather protein. The produced liquid contained nitrogen of up to 3.4% and total amino acid content of 13.6%. These results indicate the potential utilization of soluble hydrolyzed feather obtained from the HTT process for liquid N fertilizer.

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