Biomass Waste Potential And Its Effective Utilization In Malaysia Including An Experimental Work On Wood 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 of biomass waste as a replacement of fossil fuel in Malaysia is very low even though Malaysia is well-known for its agricultural sector. However, in recent years interest in it has been renewed much of being focused on its efficient conversion for energy. With respect to the global issues of sustainable energy and reduction in greenhouse gases, biomass is getting increased attention as a potential source of renewable 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 of converting 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 300OC and particle size of 250μm, the torrefied material produced is viable to be promoted at a larger scale.