Enhanced Utilization of Palm Oil Mill Wastes for Power Generation

Abstract

A massive amount of palm oil production has caused serious environmental problems, especially wastes. To minimize this negative impact as well as utilize optimally the produced wastes, an effective utilization of palm wastes, especially empty fruit bunch (EFB) and palm oil mill effluent (POME), for power generation is proposed and analysed in this study. The proposed integrated system consists of three units: EFB gasification, POME digestion and organic Rankine cycle (ORC). In addition, EFB gasification unit integrates EFB drying, gasification and power generation. POME digestion includes anaerobic treatment, power generation and aerobic treatment. The effects of EFB gasification temperature to the net generated power and remaining heat are evaluated. In case that there is remaining heat, it is utilized in ORC unit to generate additional power. Three working fluids for ORC are observed under different turbine inlet pressures. As the results, higher gasification temperature leads to larger net generated power and remaining heat due to high yield of syngas and calorific value. In addition, in ORC unit, cyclohexane showed the highest power generation efficiency than toluene and n-heptane. The highest total net generated power and generation efficiency are 8.5 MW and 30.4 %, respectively.