High global energy demand scenario has driven towards transformation from sole dependence on fossil fuels to utilization of inexhaustible renewable energy sources such as hydro, biomass, solar and wind. Renewable energy sources are abundant in Malaysia, especially palm biomass residues that are produced during the oil extraction process of fresh fruit bunch. Therefore, it is inevitable to harness these bioenergy sources, in order to prevent waste accumulation at adjacent to palm mills. Briquetting of palm biomass such as empty fruit bunch (EFB) with polyethylene (PE) plastics waste addition is expected not only could maximize the utilization of energy resources, but also could become as a potential solution for residue and municipal plastics waste disposal. In the present study, the physical and combustion properties of palm biomass briquettes that contain novel mixture of pulverized EFB and PE plastics waste were investigated experimentally. The briquettes were produced with different mixing ratio of EFB and PE plastics (weight ratios of 95:5, 90:10 and 85:15), under various heating temperatures (130-190 ) and at constant compaction pressure of 7 MPa. Based on the results, it can be said that heating temperature plays a significant role in affecting physical properties such as relaxed density and compressive strength. The values of relaxed density and compressive strength are within the range of 1100 to 1300 kg/m3 and 0.8 to 1.2 MPa, respectively. Meanwhile, mixing ratio does affect relaxed density and gross calorific value. All values of gross calorific (17900 to 21000 kJ/kg) and moisture content (7% to 9%) are found to fulfill the requirement for commercialization as stated by DIN51731 (gross calorific value>17500 kJ/kg and moisture content<10%). Even though the values of ash content (3% to 4%) exceed the limitation as stated by the standard (<0.7%), it is still considered very competitive if compared to the commonly used local briquette that contains mesocarp fibre and shell (5.8%). Finally, it can be concluded that the best quality of briquette can be achieved when highest composition of PE plastics (weight percentage of 15%) is used and the briquetting process is performed at the highest temperature (190 ).

A two-stage lean/lean gas turbine combustor was developed with low NOx characteristics in each stage using a small radial swirler of 40-mm outlet diameter in the pilot stage. Both flame tubes were arranged in series with the smaller combustor (76 mm inside diameter) as the pilot stage and the larger combustor (140 mm inside diameter) as the main stage. The pilot stage was fuelled via vane passage fuel injector, while the main stage was fuelled around the wall of the exit plane of the pilot stage, using wall fuel injectors. Low NOx emissions were obtained when using fuel staging for methane fuel, as low as 6 ppm. A NO. reduction of more than 40 % was obtained at equivalence ratio of near 0.7, when using fuel staging compared to the non-fuel-staging test. Tests were conducted using methane as fuel. This was achieved at very small increase in carbon monoxide emissions especially near the rich region and with almost no increase at all in the unburned hydrocarbon emissions at the same equivalence ratio.Keywords: NOx emissions, fuel staging, carbon monoxide, swirler.