03.08.2015   Bioenergy

Physical Properties

Final properties of biomass fibres are strongly influenced by its individual charac­teristic which played an important factor when considering this material in multidis­ciplinary applications. Biomass fibre properties that are related to vital variables include fibre structure, cell dimension, microfibril angle and defects (Abdul Khalil et al. 2012b). According to John and Thomas (2008), origin, sources, species and maturity of fibres determined the dimension of single cell in biomass fibres. Table 5.2 shows the physical properties of various agricultural biomasses. The prop­erties of end product such as tensile strength, tear strength, drainage, bonding and

Table 5.1 Chemical properties of agricultural biomass

Composition (%)

Type of biomass

Cellulose

Hemicellulose

Lignin

Extractive

Source

Bagasse

40

30

20

10

1

Corn cobs

45

35

15

5

1

Corn stalks

35

25

35

5

1

Cotton

95

2

1

0.4

1

Oil palm empty fruit bunch

50

30

17

3

1

Flax (retted)

71

21

2

6

1

Flax (unretted)

63

12

3

13

1

Hemp

70

22

6

2

1

Jute

71

14

13

2

1

Ramie

76

17

1

6

1

Sisal

73

14

11

2

1

Wheat straw

30

50

15

5

1

Oil palm frond

56

27

20

4

2

Bamboo

73

12

10

3

2

Kenaf (whole)

53

—

21

6.4

3

Kenaf (bast)

55

29

14

5.5

3

Kenaf (core)

49

33

19

4.7

3

Rice straw

34

23

11

17

4

Switchgrass

31

29

17

17

4

Henequen

78

4

13

4

5

Istle

73

4

17

2

5

Sunn

80

10

6

3

5

Banana

50

0.77

17

—

6

Sponge gourd

66

17

15

—

6

Source: (1) Abdul Khalil et al. (2012a), (2) Jawaid and Abdul Khalil (2011), (3) Abdul Khalil et al. (2010) (4) Zhao et al. (2012), (5) Klemm et al. (2005), (6) Guimaraes et al. (2009)

stress distribution are highly dependent on the fibre structural characteristic espe­cially on fibre length, fibre width and thickness of cell wall (Rousu et al. 2002; Ververis et al. 2004; Abdul Khalil et al. 2008). Fibre aspect ratio (length/width) is important in determining the suitability of fibre for an exact application in order to reach its maximum potential (Han and Rowell 1997). Biomass fibre cell wall struc­ture is composed predominantly of polysaccharide-rich primary (P) and secondary wall layers (S1, S2 and S3) (Abdul Khalil et al. 2008). This thick multilayered and sandwich-like structure of bonded cell wall layers provide strength, toughness and collapse resistance to the structure (Smook 1992). Moreover, lumen structure influ­enced the bulk density of fibres and its size affects the thermal conductivity and acoustic factor of fibre in end product (Liu et al. 2012).

Table 5.2 Physical characteristics of agricultural biomass

Agricultural

Biomass

Fibre Length (mm)

Fibre

Diameter (pm)

Thickness of single cell wall (pm)

Width of lumen (pm)

References

Oil palm EFB

0.6-1.4

8.0-25.0

—

6.9-9.8

13, 17,20

Coconut coir

0.3-1.0

12.0-14.0

0.06-8.0

—

1,4,7, 8, 19

Banana

0.1-4.2

12.0-30.0

1.2-1.5

13.4-22.4

5, 7, 8, 9, 13

Pineapple leaves

3.0-9.0

5.9-80.0

1.8-8.3

2.4 -3.0

13,20

Jute

0.8-6.0

5.0-30.0

5.2-11.3

3.4-7.6

8, 13, 15, 21

Sisal

0.8-8.0

7.0-47.0

8.0-25.0

8.0-12.0

11, 13, 19

Flax

10.0-65.0

5.0-38.0

10.0-20.0

—

13, 20, 22

Cotton

15.0-56.0

10.0-45.0

3.6-3.8

15.7-16.4

9, 13, 14, 17

Ramie

30.0-60.4

7.0-80.0

2.8-3.0

12.8-13.0

3, 13, 16

Kenaf (bast)

1.4-11.0

4.0-36.0

1.6-12.6

5.4-11.1

2,3, 13

Kenaf (core)

0.4-1.1

0.27-37.0

0.5-11.5

14.8-22.7

2, 13, 20

Bagasse

0.7-2.8

10.0-40.0

1.4-9.4

1.0-19.1

3, 12, 13

Bamboo

2.0-3.0

14.0-17.8

3.0-9.0

3.8-8.6

1, 10, 13, 17

Rice

0.4-1.2

8.0-15.5

2.0-5.6

1.1-8.7

12

corn

0.4-1.4

12.1-26.7

2.4-6.5

2.4-20.1

12

Sunflower

0.5-1.4

16.1-36.1

2.2-9.4

3.2-24.6

12

Rapeseed

0.6-1.3

6.2-34.1

1.5-9.3

3.1-27.9

12

Adapted from: (1) Joseph et al. (1999), (2) Rowell et al. (2000), (3) Mohanty et al. 2005, (4) Reddy and Yang (2005), (5) Wathen (2006), (6) Andre (2006), (7) Abdul Khalil et al. (2007), (8) Satyanarayana et al. (2007), (9) Omotoso and Ogunsile (2009), (10) Yueping et al. (2010), (11) Ahmad (2011), (12) Kiaei et al. (2011), (13) Jawaid and Abdul Khalil (2011), (14) Sadegh et al.

(2011) , (15) Zimniewska et al. (2011), (16) Abdul Khalil et al. (2012a), (17) Jawaid et al. (2012), (18) Kalita et al. (2013), (19) Shah (2013), (20) Moya et al. (2013), (21) Mershram and Palit (2013), and (22) Nguong et al. (2013)