VOL. 11, NO. 9, MAY 2016 ISSN 1819-6608 ARPN Journal of Engineering and Applied Sciences ©2006-2016 Asian Research Publishing Network (ARPN). All rights reserved. www.arpnjournals.com 6122 ENHANCING THE ENERGY PROPERTIES OF FUEL PELLETS FROM OIL PALM FRONDS OF AGRICULTURAL RESIDUES BY MIXING WITH GLYCERIN Muhamed Sharizal Sirrajudin 1 , Mohd Sukhairi Mat Rasat 1 , Razak Wahab 1 , Mohd Hazim Mohamad Amini 1 , Mazlan Mohamed 1 , Muhammad Iqbal Ahmad 1 , Janshah Moktar 2 and Mohamad Azhar Ibrahim 1 1 Faculty of Earth Science, Universiti Malaysia Kelantan, Jeli Campus, Jeli, Kelantan, Malaysia 2 Faculty of Science & Natural Resources, Universiti Malaysia Sabah, Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia E-Mail: sukhairi@umk.edu.my ABSTRACT Nowadays, the main largest energy resource is coal followed by oil and natural gas. This phenomenon raises the public concerns to diversify the energy sources to sustain energy availability. To address these predicaments, biomass from agricultural residue is an important source for renewable energy. Oil palm frond is one of the abundant agricultural residues available from the oil palm plantation area in Malaysia. Processing the oil palm fronds into fuel pellets are seen as an attractive option, which is expected to reduce the amount of agricultural residue in the plantation area. In this study, 3 portions of oil palm fronds which are bottom, middle and top have been divided and 2 different particle sizes which are 0.5 and 1.5 mm were used combination with glycerin, a by-product from biodiesel production to determine their influences on the energy properties of fuel pellets. The glycerin was combined with oil palm fronds as a biomass binder to enhance the energy properties with the optimum ratio of ingredients (ratio of raw material and glycerin) for producing fuel pellets. Proximate properties (moisture content, volatile matter, ash content and fixed carbon) and energy content (calorific value) were conducted as the parameters to determine the energy properties of the fuel pellets. The glycerin content ranging from 15 to 45% (by weight), enhanced the calorific value of the oil palm fronds’ fuel pellets from 16.73 to 22.72 MJ/kg. The results from the proximate and energy content analyses met the fuel pellet standard requirement according to the Pellet Fuel Institute (PFI). The highest of 22.72 MJ/kg heating value of fuel pellet were achieved from the middle portion of 1.5 mm particle size with the mixture ratio was 55:45; oil palm frond and glycerin respectively. In the result, the combination of oil palm fronds and glycerin can be used as an alternative material for biomass energy sources. Keywords: oil palm fronds, glycerin, fuel pellets, proximate properties, energy content. 1. INTRODUCTION Energy consumption has steadily increased over the last century as world population and industrialized developing country grown since 1900. Fossil fuel is now currently predominant energy source in the world. However, this fossil fuel will be depleted in the future. In addition, the burning of fossil fuels may cause environmental concern such as greenhouse gases (GHG) emission which known to be a major reason for global warming and climate change [7]. Nowadays, people are trying to find alternative energy for coal, oil and natural gas. One of the promising renewable energy nowadays is biomass. Lignocellulosic biomass residues play a major role in the production of sustainable energy, because it is abundant, relatively cheap and often locally available [16, 19]. One of the examples is oil palm fronds. In recent years, growing attention worldwide has focused on the use of lignocellulosic biomass residues as a feedstock to produce biofuel pellet, as an alternative to fossil fuel [17]. The main advantages with pelleted biofuels in comparison to unprocessed biofuels are the higher energy density, which means lower transport and storage costs and even better quality. The pellets also have constant moisture content. The higher mass fluidity which means that automatic feeding equipment can be used even in small- scale boilers and the smaller fuel particles, which means more even boiler feeding lead to lower emissions and better possibilities to fire at lower loads in which resulting in longer boiler utilization times [22]. In a country that has a significant amount of agricultural activities such as Malaysia; biomass can be used as an alternative source of renewable energy. The rapid expansion of oil palm cultivation has raised concerns about the sustainability and environmental impact of oil palm plantations, in particular with regard to biodiversity, destruction of old growth rainforest and air pollution [20]. The biomass materials have low bulk density and high moisture content. These undesirable properties cause several major hindrances for biomass collection, transportation and storage. One of the solutions is to pelletize the bulky biomass materials. Pellets are often favored for fuel applications because of their enhanced physical properties as well as being easy to utilize and store. A number of researchers reported that sawdust [2], peanut hull [8], grasses [15], cotton waste [10], palm kernel cake, palm fiber and empty fruit bunch have been pelletized to be utilized a good fuel and examined for energy properties [21]. Several of study to improve the pelletized energy properties had been done. This includes many factors such as moisture content, particle size, type of binders and pelletizing processes which include pelletizing pressure, temperature and pretreatment of raw material [6].