Effect of Pyrolysis Temperature and Time on Properties of Palm Kernel Shell-Based Biochar

Abstract

Pyrolysis is a thermal decomposition of biomass occurring in the absence of oxygen. Biochar (solid), bio-oil (liquid) and biogas (gas) are the typical products from pyrolysis of biomass. This endothermic process produced biochar with high carbon content. During pyrolysis, the material is heated up from ambient to a peak temperature and remains for a defined residence time. Therefore, the pyrolysis peak temperature and the residence time are the key parameters for pyrolysis. Studies on the effect of these parameters on the biochar characteristics and the pyrolysis products composition are numerous. However, there are limited findings of these parameters with palm kernel shell (PKS) as the biomass. This study focusses on the effect of the pyrolysis temperature and residence time of PKS on the yield of biochar produced and the biochar physio-chemical properties. The results showed that biochar yield decreased as the peak temperature and residence time increased. This finding is consistent with the findings by other researchers. However, those factors do not have distinct influence on biochar’s carbon content as found in other study which the peak temperature has the bigger impact instead of residence time. The effect of peak temperature or residence time on grindability; i.e. particle size of biochar after wet ball milled is insignificant. Smaller size of biochar may improve its function as reinforcing filler. As a conclusion, the optimum setup of pyrolysis is needed for a balance production in yield and biochar’s properties. It is recommended to produce biochar at higher peak temperature and shorter residence time to increase the total production. Additional analysis e.g. physical testing on the final polymer product can be used to investigate the effect of pyrolysis peak temperature and residence time.

Biochar and bio-oil fuel properties from nickel nanoparticles assisted pyrolysis of cassava peel

“…As shown in Figure 2 (B), increasing the pyrolysis temperature from 300 to 600 °C resulted to decrease in the biochar yield from 68.59 to 44.36 wt%, 62.55 to 40.34 wt% and 56.92 to 35.85 wt% for the heating rates of 10, 20 and 30 °C/min, respectively. The observed decrease in the yield of biochar as the temperature increased corroborated with the literature and may be attributed to the increased removal of volatiles during rapid lignocellulosic materials decomposition and also due secondary decomposition of primary char residues ( Mohd Hasan et al., 2019 ; Selvarajoo et al., 2022 ). Hence, the higher biochar yield at a lower temperature may be due to partial pyrolysis or incomplete decomposition of the DCP material ( Angin et al., 2013 ).…”

Elaeis guineensis leaves for potential renewable sub‐bituminous coal: Optimization of biochar yield by response surface methodology and product characterization

“…For example, when palm kernel shells were pyrolyzed at 500 °C, increasing the pyrolysis duration from 30 to 75 min decreased the biochar yield by only 5.19%. 45…”

Sustainable Utilization of King Coconut Husk as a Feedstock in Biochar Production with the Highest Conversion Efficiency and Desirable Properties

“…Pyrolysis temperature and residence time are considered the key parameters in the pyrolysis process (Hasan et al 2019). Increasing the residence time showed a noticeable decline in biochar yield at 500°C (Figure 2) with a significant difference (P<0.05) among treatments.…”