Biofuels Produced from Hydrothermal Liquefaction of Rice Husk

Abstract

This research is conducted for getting and examining bio-fuel from the process of hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) using rice husk as raw material. The HTL process used ethanol as a solvent with concentration of 96%. Properties of the produced light fuels were examined on parameter such as water content, viscosity, calorific value, density, flash point, and gas chromatography-mass spectroscopy (GC-MS). The optimum yield 36.3 wt% of light fuel from HTL process of rice husk occurred at reactor temperature of 325°C and holding time of 45 minutes. Meanwhile, the optimum production of bio-fuel (light fuel + heavy fuel) was 69.3 wt% at reactor temperature of 325 °C and holding time of 30 minutes. The resulted light fuel has the calorivic value from 12.1 to 20.2 MJ/kg, viscosity from 1.11 to 1.6 cSt, and flash point from 14 to 29 °C. For the yield of bio-fuel from HTL process, the effect of reactor temperature was more pronounced than the effect of holding time. Further, the light fuels from HTL process with low water content are interesting objects as a fuel in internal combustion engines.