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Biomass serves as an alternative energy solution for decarbonizing coal-fired power plants, which have been reactivated in several countries due to the global energy crisis. Oil palm waste, owing to its abundant availability, holds significant potential as a biomass fuel. This study aimed to investigate the combustion performance of various oil palm wastes in comparison to coal. Biomass combustion is associated with ash-related problems such as slagging, fouling, and corrosion, which may accelerate ash deposit acceleration, reduce heat transfer, and damage refractory equipment in boilers. Ash-related problems were evaluated using the method commonly adopted for solid fuel, including experimental drop tube furnace combustion and ash observation. The results indicate that each oil palm waste has different combustion characteristics. Palm leaves, empty fruit bunch, and palm fronds with clean probe observation have a relatively low tendency of slagging and fouling and can be recommended as biomass fuel for co-firing. However, their high alkali and iron contents need to be considered. Palm fiber has similar combustion characteristics to coal, but it has a high slagging and fouling tendencies. The palm stems with high chlorine content have a high corrosion tendency confirmed by probe observation, scanning electron microscopy, and X-ray diffraction analyses.

Recognizing the imperative to mitigate carbon emissions in power plants, the availability of palm oil biomass in tropical countries holds significant promise. Nevertheless, the utilization for energy generation is currently limited to some parts of the palm oil biomass, such as empty fruit bunches and oil palm kernels. The primary objective of this investigation is to systematically evaluate the appropriate selection of two different parts of a mixture of oil palm biomass by focusing on slagging and fouling aspects. The evaluation method is initially conducted using empirical calculations and subsequently validated through experimental tests. This study produced three combinations of the two most promising oil palm biomasses: 75% oil palm mesocarp fiber and 25% oil palm leaves, 25% oil palm leaves and 75% palm kernel shell, and 50% oil palm leaves and 50% palm kernel shell. These have calorific value above 4144 kcal/kg, 3824 kcal/kg, and 3761 kcal/kg, respectively. They also result clean probe observations due to high estimated ash fusion temperature up to 1200 °C, lower K-element between 2.71 and 5.14 wt% and dominance presence of Si-based minerals in ash up to 80 wt%.