Ash of palm empty fruit bunch as a natural catalyst for promoting the CO2 gasification reactivity of biomass char

Palm empty fruit bunch ash (EFB-ash) was used as a natural catalyst, rich in potassium to enhance the CO2 gasification reactivity of palm shell char (PS-char). Various EFB-ash loadings (ranging from 0 to 12.5 wt.%) were implemented to improve the reactivity of PS-char during CO2 gasification studies using thermogravimetric analysis. The achieved results explored that the highest gasification reactivity was devoted to 10% EFB-ash loaded char. The SEM-EDS and XRD analyses further confirmed the successful loading of EFB-ash on PS-char which contributed to promoting the gasification reactivity of char. Random pore model was applied to determine the kinetic parameters in catalytic gasification of char at various temperatures of 800-900 degrees C. The dependence of char reaction rate on gasification temperature resulted in a straight line in Arrhenius-type plot, from which the activation energy of 158.75 kJ/mol was obtained for the catalytic char gasification. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.