Innovative Biomass Blending: Improving Oil Palm Trunk (OPT) Pellet Characteristics with Acacia mangium Wood for Bioenergy Production

The increasing consumption of renewable resources is mostly associated to the demand of global energy and the increase of fossil fuel prices but also to the depletion and limited availability of petroleum. The usage of these biomass has lower the environmental impact as compared with other non‐renewable fuels. Currently, pellet production from non‐woody biomass has increasing and one of the important aspects is for the sustainable use as bioenergy sources because of its quality. Due to the abundant sources of non-woody biomass materials like oil palm trunk (OPT) especially in Sarawak, its potential for pellet utilization was investigated. The pellet properties from OPT was improved by blending with fast growing species wood like Acacia mangium at different blending ratio in terms of its physical, chemical and energy properties. Both biomass in fibre forms were used for pellet production by using pelletizing machine. The properties of pellet produced were analysed to evaluate the quality of pellet in terms of its moisture content, bulk density, ash content and calorific value. Blending biomass pellet has decreased slightly the ash content from 2.1 to 2.0% and the calorific values of blending biomass pellet has increased significantly from 17.4 to 18.4 MJ/kg when 30% OPT blended with 70% A. mangium. The result obtained comparable to the standard requirements for commercial pellet that is available in the market. The characteristics of blending biomass pellet is differed from pure biomass pellets which contribute to the further improve its quality, make it has highly potential as bioenergy product.