Drying of Oil Palm Fronds Using Concentrated Solar Thermal Power

Abstract

Malaysia has great potential for biomass stock. The fact that oil palm fronds contain high moisture content makes it unsuitable to be used directly as a biomass fuel neither for direct combustion nor gasification. Conventional and costly drying methods make the fronds a non-attractive fuel especially in humid tropical countries, where sources of biomass is abundant. A new solar dryer design is proposed that utilizes concentrated solar thermal energy for drying oil palm fronds. A prototype for the dryer has been fabricated and tested. The system’s target is to maximize the thermal energy received by the system and to minimize energy loss out of the system. Experiments were performed on samples of oil palm fronds at a drying temperature not exceeding 110°C; in order not to affect the organic material of the biomass. Results were compared with another experiment performed at the same temperature. An electric oven was used for drying. The samples were completely dried using the proposed system for 6.5 hours, compared to 10.5 hours by using the electric oven. The proposed system achieved an average drying rate of 4.75 g/hr compared to an average drying rate of 2.83 g/hr using the electric oven. The efficiency of the dryer was calculated to be 55.4%, implying good potential of the proposed system.