PYROLYSIS STUDIES OF GROUNDNUT SHELL
1.1. INTRODUCTION
Biomass resources including wood and wood wastes, agricultural residues, municipal solid waste, animal wastes, wastes from food processing and aquatic plants and algae. They are renewable resources whose utilization has received great attention due to environmental consideration and the increasing demand of energy worldwide. (Bakat et. al., 2009; Tsai et.al., 2007). Biomass can be converted to energy via tgermochemical conversion processes such as direct combustion, pyrolysis and gasification. (Pattiya Suttibak, 2012). Fast pyrolysis or rapid pyrolysis is mostly applied to biomass so as to change it to less energy- dense solid form into liquid form which called Bio-oil. It is thermal decomposition occurring in the absent of Oxygen.
In fast pyrolysis, biomass decomposes very quickly to generate mostly vapourised quickly to generate mostly vapourised and some charcoal and non- considerable gas. After cooling and condensation, a dark brown homogeneous mobile liquid is formed which has heating value about half that of conventional fuel oil. A high yield of liquid is obtained with most biomass feed low in ash. (Bridgewater, 2012).
Many researchers studied the production of bio-oil from various types of biomass by many fast pyrolysis reaction configuration. The yield of bio-oil could be as high as 75wt% on dry biomass feed depending on the type of biomass and the reaction unit. (Bridgewater, 2012). Bio-oil can be used as an alternative fuel i n furnaces and engines in order to produce heat and power. In addition bio-oil can be used as a raw material for chemical production. Groundnut and peanut are species of legumes. They are oil crops. Also, oilpalm, soybeans, coconuts, sesame and castor beans. The main sources of groundnuts are in China, India, Nigeria, USA, Myanmar, Indonesia, Sudan, Vietnam and Thailand. (FAO, 2013). Typically, groundnut is grown for food production.
Lately, groundnut is also a feedstock for oil production. Residues from groundnut is called SHELL. The shell is mostly burnt in the fields, and are not efficiently used for energy. Only small part of the groundnut shell is used as a compost and animal feed. By applying fast pyrolysis technology to groundnut shell for bio-oil production, the advantage is not only on fuel value aspect, but also on the environmental aspect. Abnisa et al., 2011, studied production of bio-oil via pyrolysis of palm shell in a fix-bed reactor and find that the bio-oil yield was 46.4%wt at 500°c and contain high water and oxygen.
1.2. STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
All over the world, increase in the demand of fuel for I.C engines in day to day life,there is need for alternative fuel energy sources such as vegetable oil, orange oil, Cashew nut oil, and tyre pyrolysis etc. (Faith Demirbas M. 2007). Also, due to increase in energy needs, especially for the environmental benign energy, the biomass waste, as a renewable source of energy, is of great potentiality. (Mazlam M. A. F et al. 2015). The amount of available biomass residues for conversion into renewable fuels and value added products is quite immense. Finding an environmental and sustainable method for utilization of biomass waste has become a critical problem in many agricultural countries. The biomass waste can be considered as a zero waste net CO2 energy source because the CO2 generated by biomass combustion can be absorbed and recycled from the atmosphere by replanting harvested biomass.(Mikulcic H. et al. 2014).
