Pretreatment is typically required for feedstock before feeding
into the pyrolysis reactor to avoid penalties of decreasing yield
and increasing heat requirement. Mechanical particle size reduction
and drying are commonly used in the thermal chemical process.
EFB is dried from its moisture level of 55 wt% to 9.6 wt% by
using hot flue gas from the combustor in a direct contact rotary
dryer. The dryer does not need additional heat for drying the biomass
due to the hot flue gas. After drying, the feedstock is ground
to a proper size of about 0.4 mm. This size is optimal for the fluidized-
bed biomass to allow efficient heat transfer to biomass particles
[11]. The electricity required for EFB grinding is calculated on
the basis of the Bond’s law that correlates the grinder screen size to
the energy consumption.Mani et al. [28] investigated the energy required
for grinding straws, corn stover and switchgrass at different