Prospect of Peat as an Energy Source from Hakaluki Haor, Sylhet and Moulvibazar, Bangladesh

Abstract

Abstract Prospect of Peat as an Energy Source from Hakaluki Haor, Moulvibazar, Bangladesh Mohammed Masum1 and Mohammad Omer Faruk Khan1 1Geological Survey of Bangladesh, Dhaka, Bangladesh Corresponding author’s E-mail: masum613@yahoo.com Abstract Peat has been found in many places of Bangladesh in numerous wetlands or beels or shallow deep water body. The Hakaluki Haor is one of the largest wetlands of Bangladesh and huge amount of peat has been discovered here. This haor belongs to the northeastern synclinal haor basin and bounded on its eastern and western sides by anticlines receiving huge amount of water in the wet period. Thus, a swampy environment is formed allowing the growth of different tree species which ultimately gave rise to peat deposits. The peat occurs in the shallow depth and found almost everywhere in the haor. A total of 59 peat samples have been analyzed for proximate properties collected from all over the haor by auger boring method. The moisture content, volatile matter and ash content of peat is very low; the mean value being 10.68 %, 34.6 %., 33.85 respectively. These values are of very good grade compared to lignite. Although the calorific value is much lower than the lignite and other low grade fuels the volume of peat is far greater than the other fuels and peat can be extracted at huge numbers. Moreover, there might be prospect of alternative methods such as peat gasification, peat gas methane which are environment friendly. Further research is much needed to evaluate the potential of peat to meet the energy demand in the future. Keywords: Peat, Gasification, Energy, Methane.