Oil Palm Empty Fruit Bunch Utilization into Liquid Fertilizer and Solid Fuel Using Torre-Briquetting Process

• Main Author: FURQON (nim : 13114094), MUHAMMAD
• Format: Final Project
• Language: Indonesia
• Online Access: https://digilib.itb.ac.id/gdl/view/29205
• Institution: Institut Teknologi Bandung

<p align="justify">Oil palm empty fruit bunch is an unutilized palm oil processing waste despite its abundance, due to its non-uniformity, high moisture content and high kalium content promoting slagging and fouling when burned in the furnace. The proposed solution in Thermodynamics Laboratory ITB was to use wet torrefaction to produce solid fuel; however, hydrothermally-treated product was having sludge-like appearance and difficult to transport and store as a commercial solid fuel. <br /> <br /> The term wet torrefaction in this research is a thermochemical conversion process that uses water in high temperature and pressure to improve material quality. In order to improve the transportability and storability of the product, binderless briquetting process is proposed in this Final Project to produce a dense and uniform solid fuel. The combination of wet torrefaction and briquetting processes is called torre-briquetting process. <br /> <br /> Wet torefaction processing of empty fruit bunch produced two products, solid and liquid. The heating value of the solid product was obtained by using bomb calorimeter before compressed into briquette form. The micronutrient concentration of the liquid product was tested using NPK meter. Optimization was then conducted to obtain high quality fuel in term of heating value, kalium content, briquette density, briquette strength and total processing energy. <br /> <br /> The experimental result showed that the hydrothermally-treated empty fruit bunch processed at 175 &#8451;, 30 min holding time, and 1:3 sample to water ratio, was having Higher Heating Value similar to that of subbituminous C coal. Moreover, kalium has decreased up to 64% in the solid product. Briquetting at 1500 bar was able to produce briquette with 1097 kg/m3 bulk density and 99% Drop Shatter Index value, fulfilling the ENplus and FAO standard. The liquid product also showed similar NPK concentration to commercial organic liquid fertilizer. It can be concluded that by using torre-briquetting process, empty fruit bunch can be converted into high quality solid fuel and liquid fertilizer.<p align="justify">