Ex-Situ morphology and proximate analysis of empty fruit bunch under Torrefaction Process

The oil palm waste was one of the natural resources that has been wasted for a decade, due to low and lack of important used. This oil palm waste has high moisture content and oil palm waste has low carbon content and calorific values. That makes less used as a altemative energy resources. Therefore in this research used torrefaction treatment to modified EFB samples. Torrefaction is thermal process where biomass was heated within temperature at range of 200-300 ᶿC under an inert gas atmosphere. This treatment was used to study the effectiveness of Empty fruit bunch after torrefaction process. The determining surface morphology of EFB by using optical microscope and determine the proximate value of EFB. This research conduct several test experiment that to determine characteristic of EFB and raw element in the EFB strand. There was a hydrophobic test, mass yield percentage test and XRF analysis. This study define the silica body on the surface of EFB and the effect of torrefaction that change physical properties, such as colour of EFB was change from light brown to become darker brown due to increase carbon formation after torrefaction process. The characteristic changes after torrefaction process, there was decreasing of mass yield percentage and toreefied EFB was proven to improve the physical property of a biomass by increasing its nature state of hydrophobicity. The torrefaction process modified the physical and characteristic of EFB to be more effective to industry technology besides to develop new technology to recycle the energy that was wasted over a years.