Tóm tắt

Waste palm shell is a large-volume biomass waste produced from palm oil mills, representing a resourcernto be treated and converted into a value-added product. In this study, an improved microwave wet tor-refaction (low-temperature pyrolysis) incorporating microwave radiation and steam was performed torntorrefied the waste palm shell into higher porous biochar. The biochar and catalytic effect of using micro-wave radiation and steam over a range of process temperature (250–350u0001C) were investigated. Thernmicrowave wet torrefaction demonstrated a significantly faster heating rate (up to 120u0001C/min) and com-pared to that shown by microwave heating without steam (45u0001C/min, 15 min). Microwave wet torrefac-tion exhibited relatively lower mass yield (63.5 wt%) compared to microwave torrefaction (72.5 wt%).rnHowever, the biochar obtained from microwave wet torrefaction produced higher surface arearn(308.0 mrn2rn/g) compared to microwave torrefaction (110.8 mrn2rn/g). Our results demonstrate that microwavernwet torrefaction shows potential as a catalytic approach to treat waste palmshell in providing a fast heat-ing rate, low