Hydrogen and syngas yield from residual branches of oil palm tree using steam gasification

Wastes produced during oil palm production from agro-industries have great potential as a source of renewable energy in agriculturally rich countries, such as Thailand and Malaysia. Clean chemical energy recovery from oil palm residual branches via steam gasification is investigated here. A semi-batch reactor was used to investigate the gasification of palm trunk wastes at different reactor temperatures in the range of 600 to 1000 °C. The steam flow rate was fixed at 3.10 g/min. Characteristics and overall yield of syngas properties are presented and discussed. Results show that gasification temperature slightly affects the overall syngas yield. However, the chemical composition of the syngas varied tremendously with the reactor temperature. Consequently, the syngas heating value and ratio of energy yield to energy consumed were found to be strongly dependent on the reactor temperature. Both the heating value and energy yield ratio increased with increase in reactor temperature. Gasification duration and the steam to solid fuel ratio indicate that reaction rate becomes progressively slower at reactor temperatures of less than 700 °C. The results reveal that steam gasification of oil palm residues should not be carried out at reactor temperatures lower than 700 °C, since a large amount of steam is consumed per unit mass of the sample in order to gasify the residual char.