Fast pyrolysis of date palm (Phoenix dactylifera) waste in a bubbling fluidized bed reactor

Yassir Makkawi, Yehya El Sayed, Mubarak Salih, Paul Nancarrow, Scott Banks and Tony Bridgwater

Renewable Energy, 2019, vol. 143, issue C, 719-730

Abstract: This study presents the first experimental investigation of date palm (Phoenix dactylifera) waste fast pyrolysis in a bubbling fluidized bed reactor. The physiochemical characteristics of the feedstock (from cultivars grown in the Emirate of Sharjah in the UAE), including three anatomical parts of the plant, namely, leaves, leaf stems and empty fruit bunches, have been first analyzed and compared to other popular type of biomass. These components have been subjected to fast pyrolysis and mass balances have been derived. The fast pyrolysis products (bio-oil, and non-condensable gas) have been analyzed in terms of their chemical composition, thermogravimetric profiles, and energy content. The overall product distribution in mass percentage at the pyrolysis temperature of 525 °C was found to be 38.8% bio-oil (including 10.4% reaction water), 37.2% biochar and 24.0% non-condensable gas. The overall energy conversion efficiency (ratio of energy content in the product to that in the feedstock) was found to be 87.0%, thus indicative of the good potential of converting the date palm waste to energy while eliminating the negative environmental impact and cost associated with waste disposal.

Keywords: Fast pyrolysis; Renewable energy; Date palm waste; Biomass; Fluidized bed reactor; Biofuels (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960148119306871
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:renene:v:143:y:2019:i:c:p:719-730

DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2019.05.028

Access Statistics for this article

Renewable Energy is currently edited by Soteris A. Kalogirou and Paul Christodoulides

More articles in Renewable Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().