Concerns about climate change and food productivity have spurred interest in biochar, a form of charred organic material typically used in agriculture to improve soil productivity and as a means of carbon sequestration. An innovative approach in agriculture is the use of agro-forestry waste for the production of soil fertilisers for agricultural purposes and as a source of energy. A common agricultural practice is to burn crop residues in the field to produce ashes that can be used as soil fertilisers. This approach is able to supply plants with certain nutrients, such as Ca, K, Mg, Na, B, S, and Mo. However, the low concentration of N and P in the ashes, together with the occasional presence of heavy metals (Ni, Pb, Cd, Se, Al, etc.), has a negative effect on soil and, therefore, crop productivity. This work describes the opportunity to create an innovative supply chain from agricultural waste biomass. Olive (Olea europaea) and hazelnut (Corylus avellana) pruning residues represent a... [more]

A computational tool is developed for the estimation of the energy requirements of Miscanthus x giganteus on individual fields that includes a detailed analysis and account of the involved in-field and transport operations. The tool takes into account all the individual involved in-field and transport operations and provides a detailed analysis on the energy requirements of the components that contribute to the energy input. A basic scenario was implemented to demonstrate the capabilities of the tool. Specifically, the variability of the energy requirements as a function of field area and field-storage distance changes was shown. The field-storage distance highly affects the energy requirements resulting in a variation in the efficiency if energy (output/input ratio) from 15.8 up to 23.7 for the targeted cases. Not only the field-distance highly affects the energy requirements but also the biomass transportation system. Based on the presented example, different transportation systems a... [more]

Logging residues, which refer to the unused portions of trees cut during logging, are important sources of biomass for the emerging biofuel industry and are critical feedstocks for the first-type biofuel facilities (e.g., corn-ethanol facilities). Logging residues are under-utilized sources of biomass for energetic purposes. To support the scaling-up of the bioenergy industry, it is essential to design cost-effective biofuel supply chains that not only minimize costs, but also consider the biomass quality characteristics. The biomass quality is heavily dependent upon the moisture and the ash contents. Ignoring the biomass quality characteristics and its intrinsic costs may yield substantial economic losses that will only be discovered after operations at a biorefinery have begun. This paper proposes a novel bioenergy supply chain network design model that minimizes operational costs and includes the biomass quality-related costs. The proposed model is unique in the sense that it suppor... [more]

Bio-oil produced from conventional flash pyrolysis has poor quality and requires expensive upgrading before it can be used as a transportation fuel. In this work, a high quality bio-oil has been produced using a novel approach where flash pyrolysis, catalysis and fractionation of pyrolysis vapors using two stage condensation are combined in a single process unit. A bench scale unit of 1 kg/h feedstock capacity is used for catalytic pyrolysis in an entrained down-flow reactor system equipped with two-staged condensation of the pyrolysis vapor. Zeolite-based catalysts are investigated to study the effect of varying acidities of faujasite Y zeolites, zeolite structures (ZSM5), different catalyst to biomass ratios and different catalytic pyrolysis temperatures. Low catalyst/biomass ratios did not show any significant improvements in the bio-oil quality, while high catalyst/biomass ratios showed an effective deoxygenation of the bio-oil. The application of zeolites decreased the organic liq... [more]

The growing demand for petroleum, accompanied by the declining petroleum reserves and the concerns over energy security, has intensified the interest in direct coal liquefaction (DCL), particularly in countries such as China which is rich in coal resources, but short of petroleum. In addition to a general introduction on the mechanisms and processes of DCL, this paper overviews some recent advances in DCL technology with respect to the influencing factors for DCL reactions (temperature, solvent, pressure, atmospheres, etc.), the effects of coal pre-treatments for DCL (swelling, thermal treatment, hydrothermal treatment, etc.), as well as recent development in multi-staged DCL processes, DCL catalysts and co-liquefaction of coal with biomass.

The shift to a bio-based economy for the Netherlands is not only required because of climate change, but also for industrial strategy reasons. Traditional strongholds of the Dutch economy like the Rotterdam harbour, the agricultural sector (including the greenhouse sector, and food and feed industries) and the petrochemical industry will be affected by the new economic realities, and it is precisely to these sectors that a bio-based economy will offer new opportunities.

Crops for biofuels squanders cropland, water, and energy resources vital for food production needed for people.

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Thermogravimetric analysis was employed to investigate the combustion characteristics of flax shives, beech wood, hemicellulose, cellulose, lignin, and their chars. The chars were prepared from raw materials in a fixed-bed reactor at 850 °C. In this study, the thermal behavior based on characteristic temperatures (ignition, maximum, and final temperatures), burnout time and maximum rate was investigated. The kinetic parameters for the combustion of different materials were determined based on the Coats-Redfern approach. The results of our study revealed that the combustion of pure pseudo-components behaved differently from that of biomass. Indeed, principal component analysis showed that the thermal behavior of both biomasses was generally similar to that of pure hemicellulose. However, pure cellulose and lignin showed different behaviors compared to flax shives, beech wood, and hemicellulose. Hemicellulose and cellulose chars had almost the same behaviors, while being different from b... [more]

A study was conducted to investigate the parameter that has influence on steam gasification kinetics between the biomass type and char preparation. Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) was carried out on steam gasification of seven biomass samples as well as chars from three of these samples. Chars were prepared using three different sets of low heating rate (LHR) pyrolysis conditions including temperature and biomass bed geometry. It was shown by a characteristic time analysis that these pyrolysis conditions were not associated with a chemical regime in a large amount of devices. However, it has been shown experimentally that conditions used to prepare the char had a much lower influence on steam gasification kinetics than the biomass type.

Flotation constitutes a separation process that originated from mineral processing. Nowadays, wider applications have been found and compared to flotation for water and wastewater treatment. Stress in the present review paper was mainly applied to heavy metal ions recovery by flotation and the respective mechanism followed, being either ion, precipitate, or sorptive flotation. In the latter case, the use of adsorbents is included (such as powdered activated carbon, zeolites, and goethite), as well as various biosorbents. The flotation of the following metals was reviewed: copper, zinc, nickel, lead, iron, chromium, arsenic, gold, and others. The bubble generation method could be applied for typical dispersed-air flotation column, electroflotation, or dissolved-air flotation; the latter being the most appropriate established technique in water treatment. The role of particle size (for example, studying flotation of salt-type mineral fines) was also examined.

In this study, a new Biomass-Gas-Nuclear heat-To-Liquid fuel (BGNTL) process is presented which uses high-temperature nuclear heat as the heat source for steam methane reforming (SMR). This process co-produces liquid fuels (Fischer-Tropsch liquids, methanol and DME) and power. The BGNTL process was simulated using a combination of different software packages including gPROMS, MATLAB, ProMax, and Aspen Plus. This included the use of a rigorous multi-scale model for the nuclear-heat-powered SMR reactor which was developed in a prior work in gPROMS. Energy efficiency and cradle-to-grave life cycle inventory and life-cycle impact analyses of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions were accomplished to analyze the environmental impacts of the BGNTL system. Plant performance was compared with a base case Biomass-Gas-To-Liquid (BGTL) process at the same size. In both processes, a carbon capture and storage (CCS) option is considered. It has been found that both processes result in negative total life... [more]

These are Aspen Plus simulation files for a Biomass-Gas-and-Nuclear-To-Liquids chemical plant (a conceptional design), which uses the Copper-Chloride route for hydrogen production. This is a part of a larger work (see linked LAPSE record for pre-print and associated publication in Canadian J Chem Eng). Process sections and major units in this simulation include: Gasification, Integrated-Gasification-Methane-Reforming, Pre-Reforming, Water Gas Shift, Autothermal Reforming, Syngas Blending and Upgrading, Solid Oxide Fuel Cell power islands, Fischer-Tropsch Synthesis, Methanol Synthesis, Dimethyl Ether Synthesis, Heat Recovery and Steam Generation, CO2 Compression for Sequestration, Cooling Towers, and various auxiliary units for heat and pressure management. See the linked work for a detailed description of the model.

New polygeneration processes for the co-production of liquid fuels (Fischer-Tropsch liquids, methanol, and dimethyl ether) and electricity are presented. The processes use a combination of biomass, natural gas, and nuclear energy as primary energy feeds. Chemical process models were created and used to simulate candidate versions of the process, using combinations of models ranging from complex multi- scale models to standard process flowsheet models. The simulation results are presented for an Ontario, Canada case study to obtain key metrics such as efficiency and product conversions. Sample Aspen Plus files are provided in the supplementary material to be used by others.

In this paper, several new processes are proposed which co-generate electricity and liquid fuels (such as diesel, gasoline, or dimethyl ether) from biomass, natural gas and heat from a high temperature gas-cooled reactor. This carbonless heat provides the required energy to drive an endothermic steam methane reforming process, which yields H2-rich syngas (H2/CO>6) with lower greenhouse gas emissions than traditional steam methane reforming processes. Since downstream Fischer-Tropsch, methanol, or dimethyl ether synthesis processes require an H2/CO ratio of around 2, biomass gasification is integrated into the process. Biomass-derived syngas is sufficiently H2-lean such that blending it with the steam methane reforming derived syngas yields a syngas of the appropriate H2/CO ratio of around 2. In a prior work, we also demonstrated that integrating carbonless heat with combined steam and CO2 reforming of methane is a promising option to produce a syngas with proper H2/CO ratio for Fischer... [more]