EFB Pellets with Low Potassium (K) and Chlorine (Cl) for Power Plants

Palm oil mills that have excess energy, especially electrical energy, will have more freedom to develop their business. The excess electrical energy could have come from the production of electricity from the use of biogas. Liquid waste (pome) from palm oil mills is the raw material for biogas production. A palm oil mill with a production capacity of 30 tons of FFB/hour will be able to generate 1 MW of electricity and so on. One of the products that can be processed from the utilization of palm oil solid waste as well as the development of this business by utilizing excess energy is EFB pellets production. With the high price of palm kernel shells or PKS and wood pellets, the driving force or need for EFB pellets is increasing. Global awareness regarding decarbonization or CO2 removal (CDR) or CO2 reduction is the main driving force.

Apart from that, the production of EFB pellets can also be carried out by a separate company by purchasing the raw materials for EFB from palm oil mills. With conditions in Indonesia where there are still very few palm oil mills that have biogas units so that they have electricity supply and can process EFB into EFB pellets, there is still a lot of EFB that has not been utilized and becomes waste that pollutes the environment. This makes EFB pellet producing companies not have to worry about the supply of EFB raw materials. In fact, because the amount or volume of EFB is very large, the EFB pellet plant will be overwhelmed by the abundance of this raw material.

However, due to the high content of EFB in potassium and chlorine (ash chemistry), the use of EFB pellets is limited or can only be used in certain types of power plants, especially stokers and fluidized beds. In fact, most power plants currently use pulverized combustion technology. This is so that the chemical content of ash in EFB must be made as friendly as possible to boilers, especially those with pulverized combustion technology. This can be done so that the chemical content of the ash in the form of potassium (K) and chlorine (Cl) is only less than 2000 ppm. Potassium (K) with a low melting point causes deposits or scale to form in the heat exchanger pipes in the boiler so that the efficiency of heat exchange decreases while chlorine (Cl) is corrosive which shortens the life of the equipment. The treatment was even successful in reducing K and Cl by up to 80% so that the problem of fouling thickness and corrosivity was also reduced by 80%. With the number of palm oil mills in Indonesia reaching around 1000 units, of course the amount of EFB that can be processed into EFB pellets is also very large.