Effect of Particle Size on Wood Torrefaction

Torrefaction is a pretreatment process of biomass at temperature rangeof200-300 °Cwith the
absence of oxygen. The objective of this paper isto conduct a torrefaction experiment as a way
to get a better fuel quality and to treat the biomass into high calorific value biomass. This
experiment also wants to optimize the best particle size used during theexperiment. The problem
of biomass is that it content high moisture which result in a high mass biomass. The particle size
itselfgives it significant effect to relative weight lost during the torrefaction experiment. The
different particle size of wood is putunder aninert condition byflushing thenitrogen into the
reactor. Thetemperature of the reactor wasraised to different desired levels, i.e. 220,250 or 300
°Cat a constant rate of 10deg/min by an electric furnace surrounding the reactor.