An Exploration of Modified Microwave-assisted Rapid Hydrothermal Liquefaction Process for Conversion of Palm Kernel Shells to Bio-oil

Abstract

Bio-oil is one of the potential resources to address the sustainable energy development and environmental issues. Microwave-assisted Rapid Hydrothermal Liquefaction Process is one of the popular techniques that is used to extract bio-oil from biomass. In this paper, the bio-oil has been extracted from Palm Kernel Shells by using microwave-assisted and conventional heating pyrolysis processes. A modified heating mantle apparatus are used to conduct the experiment for extracting the bio-oil. The experiments are conducted by varying the hydrothermal temperature and time for both techniques to achieve the conversion of the bio-oil from the raw material. It is found that the yield of bio-oil for microwave-assisted Rapid Hydrothermal Liquefaction Process at 350°C and 400°C are from 10.70 wt% to 25.60 wt% within hydrothermal time 6, 9 and 12 minutes. The pH value of the bio-oil is acidic with the range from 3 to 4. The calorific value of the bio-oil is varied from 24 to 26 MJ/kg for both conversion methods. Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) result reveals that multiple functional groups (alcohol, aldehydes, carboxylic acid and ketones) are present in the PKS bio-oil.

Microwave Assisted Pyrolysis of Moringa Seed and Karanja for Bio-Oil Production

“…A study reported that calorific value of bio oil of Moringa Seed and Karanja are much lower than commercial fuel such as diesel with calorific value of 45.18 MJ/kg and heavy fuel oil with calorific value of 42.5 MJ/kg which indicated that bio oil content is higher in oxygenated compounds and condensed water (Hawash et al, 2017;Ravikumar et al, 2017). Bio oil of Karanja has lower heating value due to high moisture content of raw materials during microwave pyrolysis (Ibrahim et al, 2012;Saleh et al, 2023). A study reported that bio oil obtained from corn stover has a pH value of 2.87 and most of the bio oil have a pH range of 2.0 -3.8.…”