| 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), mixture of mesocarp fibre and kernel or better known as palm pressed fibre (PPF). An average of 0.09 tonne of mesocarp fibre is produced for every tonne of CPO. Most of the operating mills use up their mesocarp fibre and shell as fuel to the boiler.
In this research, PPF is pyrolysed to produce bio-oil, char and gas in a tubular fixed bed reactor under catalytic and non-catalytic conditions. Catalytic PPF pyrolysis was carried out using CuO/ZrO2 catalysts being physically mixed with the biomass. The bio-oil which is one of the products from thermochemical reactions on PPF was produced of encouraging yield and quality. The bio-oil produced from CuO/ZrO2 catalytic reactions on PPF pyrolysis was enriched with hydrocarbon compounds together with oxygenated compounds such as carboxylic acids and ketones. The presence of hydrocarbons indicated that the bio-oil is a potential liquid fuel in the near future.
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