Preliminary Study on Properties of Leucaena leucocephala as Potential Biomass Energy Sources

The heavy reliance on non-renewable energy sources such as petroleum, natural gas and coal has led to the scarcity of these sources and occurrence of global warming. This phenomenon raises the public concerns to diversify the energy sources to sustain energy availability. To address these predicaments, biomass is among the prominent alternative energy sources since it is renewable and possesses minimal harms to the environment. Leucaena leucocephala, or locally known as "Petai Belalang" is one of the potential energy crops. In this study, three (3) portions of Leucaena leucocephala stems which are bottom, middle and top have been divided and two (2) different particle sizes which are 0.5 and 1.5 mm were used to determine their influences on the properties of samples. Proximate analysis (moisture content, volatile matter, ash content and fixed carbon), physical analysis (specific gravity and bulk density) plus energy content of Leucaena leucocephala were conducted as the parameters to determine the properties of the samples. Among the proximate parameters, portions differ significantly (p<0.01) in moisture content, volatile mater and ash content, except for fixed carbon whereas particle sizes show significant differences (p<0.01) in moisture content, ash content and fixed carbon, while differs (p<0.05) in volatile matters. Both independent factors differs significantly ( <0.01) in the physical parameters including specific gravity and bulk density (kg/m-). The highest calorific value (MJ/kg) was observed in bottom portion with particle size 0.5 mm, which is 18.56 MJ/kg whereas calorific values are significantly differs (p<0.01) for both independent factors. According to the result of correlation analysis, there were 25 pairs of variables which correlate either positively or negatively to each other. Regression analysis was conducted to develop empirical equations for the estimation of wood energy content in the study according to the proximate analysis that has been done before this.