Abstract
The Palm Oil sector is one of the biggest biomass industries in Malaysia with approximately 140 million tonnes of oil palm waste produced in 2022. A proper and systematic approach is required to manage and valorize this waste if Malaysia intends to fully utilize biomass resources. Pyrolysis procedures have emerged as an exceptionally encouraging method to transform biomass into valuable products. The critical benefit of this technique lies in its proficient capability to thermally decompose biomass at elevated temperatures without the presence of oxygen. This technology facilitates the synthesis of biochar, bio-oil, and syngas, which hold critical value in different applications. This work investigates the potential of valorizing oil palm wastes (OPW) into porous carbon via catalytic pyrolysis. The study intends to discover a green feedstock for energy storage applications through a sustainable technology. OPW will first be treated with Iron(III) nitrate and Cobalt(II) nitrate salts to incorporate the Fe, Co, and FeCo catalyst particles. The pretreated OPW will then undergo pyrolysis in an inert environment at 600 °C. The results showed biochar yields of 36.33 %, 31.47 % and 34.92 % for Fe, Co, and FeCo catalysts, respectively. Electrochemical tests showed that the specific capacitances for Fe-600, Co-600, and FeCo-600 were 66.3746, 64.2444, and 71.2457 F/g, respectively. The Nyquist plots obtained showed that FeCo-600 possessed the lowest contact resistance and highest capacitive properties.
