BIOMASS WASTE POTENTIAL AND ITS EFFECTIVE UTILIZATION IN MALAYSIA INCLUDING AN EXPERIMENTALWORK ONWOOD TORREFACTION

This project studied on the current utilization of biomass wastes in Malaysia and
discovers the potential of biomass wastes as one of the alternative energy resources.
Based on the literature review that had been conducted, the utilization ofbiomass waste
as a replacement offossil fuel in Malaysia is very low even though Malaysia is wellknown
for its agricultural sector. However, in recent years interest in it has been
renewed much ofbeing focused on its efficient conversion for energy. With respect to
the global issues ofsustainable energy and reduction in greenhouse gases, biomass is
getting increased attention as apotential source ofrenewable energy. However, biomass
is not yet competitive with fossil fuels. In recent years, many studies on the biomass
conversion for energy technology had been conducted by various researchers and some
of the technology had been proven and had been implemented in Malaysia in small
scale. This projected also investigated the possibility ofconverting biomass wastes into
solid fuels by undergoing torrefaction process. Acasia wood, Seraya wood and Golden
Powder wood was used to produce torrefied material and the factors affecting
torrefaction were investigated. The biomass waste was dried, ground and sieved before it
is heated and cooled to obtain the torrefied material. It was found that almost 100% of
the calorific value in all the samples can be retained or increased by up to 10% from the
original value. At the optimum condition of temperature 300°C and particle size of
250um, the torrefied material produced is viable to be promoted at a larger scale.