Abundant nipa palm waste as Bio-pellet fuel

Usage of conventional energy sources such as oil, coal, and natural gas as an energy source for development has led to many economic, environmental, social, and political impacts worldwide. Due to this, the world has redirected its policies and investments towards producing clean energy which is based on renewable resources such as biomass. Due to the limitation of biomass which is low-density value, high moisture contents at the production place and non-uniform sizes and shapes, biomass was considered difficult to be utilized efficiently. To overcome this, pellet fuels were used to increase the density of the biomass. Since the enormous quantity of crops is produced from nipa palm, this paper focuses on studying the pelletizing properties of different parts of nipa palm seeds through the determination of the drying behavior, calorific value determination, CHNS determination, and TGA analysis and mechanical strength on the nipa palm seed. Husk was observed to have the highest calorific value which was 3843.5 kcal/kg and mixture nipa palm seed has a calorific value of 4092.7 kcal/kg which is in range with the industrial pellets’ calorific value. Based on the CHNS analysis, carbon content was found to be the highest in the husk as compared to the other parts. It was observed that all parts of the nipa palm seed exhibit almost similar thermogravimetric (TG) curve but slightly different differential thermogravimetric (DTG) curve peaks with different maximum mass-loss rates. Finer size particles were observed to have better pellets’ performance in terms of its strength due to the higher surface area of the particle. Pellets formed from nipa palm seeds could be used to form pellet fuels given the fact that they have high calorific values and almost similar compositions with the industrial pellets.