Char and Ash Forming Elements of Tropical Beach Seawrack

The utilization of energy from renewable sources had been steadily increasing.Bioenergy's contribution to the final energy consumption was estimated at 12, while traditional biomass was at 6.9.The ever-increasing biomass utilization through direct combustion and other thermochemical conversions will increase the generation of ash and char.The chemical composition of biomass ash is as diverse as its origin and source.Seawrack or beach-cast seagrass (Enhalus Acoroides (L.f.) Royle deposited along the shorelines had been the focus of this paper.However, investigation on seawrack as feedstock has not yet been conducted.Data and knowledge on the viability of beach-cast seagrass gasification is still lacking.The absence of data would further result in continued disregard of a potential energy resource.This paper aims to probe and determine the elemental composition of beach-cast seagrass char and ash to further understand its performance during the gasification process. EDX analysis on the ash residue was performed to identify its surface elemental composition.FTIR spectroscopy and chemical analysis were conducted to identify the organic compounds present in the beach-cast seagrass sample. Results of the EDX analysis of beach-cast seagrass ash showed the major and minor elements in the beach-cast seagrass ash in decreasing order of availability are O (53.18) > C (29.63) > Ca (9.23) > Na (2.59) > Cl (2.24) > Mg (2.12) > S (0.55).The Chlorine content of beach-cast seagrass is very minimal, which indicates that corrosion and fouling may not occur during gasification.As well as the concentration of Ca and Mg is beneficial in the improvement of the product gas and reduction of tar formation during biomass gasification.The presence of lignin, known as the main component responsible for char formation, was confirmed through FTIR spectroscopy.Further, chemical analysis validated that beach-cast seagrass Enhalus Acoroides comprises lignin at 14.93, cellulose at 74.11, and hemicellulose at 21.04. © 2023, Institute of Technology PETRONAS Sdn Bhd.