A Relationship for Estimating the Exergy of Rice Husk Using LHV

Abstract

Rice is the primary staple for the world’s population and it is one of the main cereals in the world. The tremendous global rice production results in a huge amount of rice husk, making rice husk a very important biomass fuel. LHV (lower heating value) and exergy are two important properties of a biomass fuel, and they are generally used for evaluating the energy of a biomass fuel. Also, exergy is usually used to assess the energy quality of a biomass fuel. This study aims to investigate the LHV and exergy of rice husk. The LHVs and exergy values of twenty eight rice husk samples are investigated in this study. The results show that the LHVs and exergy values of the rice husk samples are in the ranges of 8879.12–16200.00 kJ/kg and 10918.01–18457.87 kJ/kg, respectively. The higher LHV of a rice husk the higher exergy of the rice husk, and a positive linear relationship between exergy and LHV is observed for the rice husk samples. The relative errors between the estimated and calculated exergy values are in the range of −3.678%–1.704% for the rice husk samples, the simple relationship proposed in this study can therefore be used as an expeditious methodology for estimating the exergy of rice husks.