Stabilization of Empty Fruit Bunch (EFB) Derived Bio-oil

Bio-oil is a promising alternative source of energy which can be produced from empty fruit bunch (EFB). Bio-oil comprises a mixture of highly oxygenated compounds, carboxylic acids and trace water. Bio-oil can be used as a substitute for conventional fuels after it is upgraded. However, bio-oil can react through many chemical reactions such as polymerization and this will lead to the increase in viscosity of bio-oil during storage. Thus, this research project will explore on the stabilization of empty fruit bunch derived bio-oil. The bio-oil that will be used in this research is produce from the catalytic pyrolysis of EFB. The optimum reaction condition used is catalytic pyrolysis of EFB using 5 wt% of H-Y catalyst at reaction temperature of 500 °C and nitrogen flow rate of 100 ml/min. This operating condition is able to obtain the maximum yield. There are 2 type of methods will be used in this research to improve the stability of the bio-oil: addition of anti-oxidants and addition of solvents. For the addition of anti-oxidants, three kinds of anti-oxidants which are propyl gallate (PG), tert-butyl hydroquinone (TBHQ), butylatedhydroxyanisole (BHA) and calcium chloride salts (CaCl2) are added to bio-oil in the amount of 1000 ppm. On the other hand, the second methods will use 10 wt% of solvents including acetone, ethanol 95 %, and ethyl acetate to increase the bio-oil’s stability. All the test samples are subjected to accelerated aging involving exposure to high temperature of 80 oC for 7 days. The properties of samples which are chosen as the indicator of the aging are viscosity, water content and acidity. This progress report contains 6 chapters. Chapter 1 will discuss the introduction on the background, problem statement, objective and the scope of study for the project, relevancy of the project and feasibility of the project within the scope and time frame. A detailed literature review will be discussed in chapter 2. Besides, chapter 3 will focus on the research methodology and also the key milestones for the project in order to give a detail overview of the whole research project. Chapter 4 will be the results and discussion for the research project. Chapter 5 and 6 are the conclusion and references respectively.