Torrefaction of Wood Pellets using Counter Flow Multi-Baffle (COMB) Technology

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Jabon (Anthocephalus cadamba) is a promosing fast growing wood species that is widely planted in community forests and industrial plantation forests but the wood has a relatively low density, durability, and mechanical properties which limited its application as structural timbers. One of the alternative utilizations of jabon wood is by converting into wood pellet for bioenergy. The aim of this study was to improve the properties of wood pellets from jabon through rapid torrefaction using Counter-Flow Multi Baffle (COMB) reactor, a pilot plant for torrefaction of biomass with a capacity of 20 kg/h that has a main advantage of performing torrefaction within a short period of time. Wood pellets were classified according to its length and then torrefied at 300°C with a residence time of 3 min. Torrefied pellets (black pellets) were succesfully produced. The initial moisture content of the long and short pellets of 12.76% and 12.47% decreased up to 2.85% and 2.61% after torrefaction. Water immersion test for 1 min, 5 min, 30 min, 1 h, 6 h, 12 h, and 24 h showed that the raw pellets (control) fully disintegrated after 30 min, while black pellets showed no significant disintegration even after 24 h test which is an advantage for long period storage of pellets. The initial calorific values of long and short pellets of 17.69 MJ/kg and 17.35 MJ/kg increased up to 31.79 MJ/kg and 32.02 MJ/kg after torrefaction. The results proposed that rapid torrefaction using COMB could provide a great improvement in bioenergetic properties of wood pellets from fast growing species as jabon wood.