| ABSTRACT |
The palm oil processing and production leading to crude palm oil (CPO) has generated huge amounts of solid waste biomass such as empty fruit bunch (EFB), frond, mesocarp fibre and kernel. The production of 1 tonne crude palm oil requires 5 tonnes of fresh fruit bunches (FFB), and its processing palm oil mills generates an average 1,150 kg empty fruit bunches (EFB) and 3250 kg palm oil mill effluent (POME)(Heinz Stichnothe and Frank Schuchardt, 2010).
In this research, EFB is pyrolysed to produce bio-oil, char and gas in a tubular fixed bed reactor under catalytic and non-catalytic conditions. Catalytic EFB pyrolysis was carried out using CoO/SiO2-Al2O3 catalysts being physically mixed with the biomass. The bio-oil produced from CoO/SiO2-Al2O3 catalytic reactions on EFB pyrolysis was enriched with aliphatic hydrocarbon compounds together with the presence of oxygenated compounds such as carboxylic acids, ether, aldehydes and ketones. The presence of various organic compounds indicated that the bio-oil is a potential chemical feedstock in the near future.
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