Effect of Plastic Blends on Slow Pyrolysis of Oil Palm Empty Fruit Bunch

In this study, the slow pyrolysis of oil palm empty fruit bunch (EFB) with different plastic wastes from industrial activities i.e. polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and polyethylene (PE) was investigated to observing the effect of plastic proportion in the feedstocks. Prior to thermochemical conversion, raw materials were characterized by using elemental and thermogravimetric analyses. The experiments were conducted on all raw materials and their mixture in varying mass ratios with a heating rate of 10 degrees C min-1 from room temperature to the desired temperature at 500 degrees C in the N2 atmosphere. Different types of characterization techniques were applied to characterizing the liquid product (bio-oil) of the pyrolysis. Pyrolysis experiments showed that mixing of biomass and plastic materials contribute more in increasing the calorific value of bio-oil by up to 37% and 9% for EFB/PET and EFB/PE mixtures respectively. In addition, the characterization studies showed that biomass and plastic materials could be converted into valuable chemicals.