Abstract
As with all transport modes, the maritime sector is undergoing a drastic transition towards net zero, similar to the path in which Aviation is already engaged through global decarbonization programs such as CORSIA for the International Civil Aviation Organization, or the Emission trading Scheme of the European Union). Maritime indeed shares with Aviation a common element: the difficulty of shifting to electric in the short to medium term. Therefore, the use of sustainable fuels represents the main and only relevant option in this timeframe. As sustainable biofuels will be used as blend components in the case of large-scale deployment, it is necessary to investigate the behavior of bio- and fossil-based fuels when mixed in various percentages, in particular for low quality products such as HTL (HydroThermal Liquefaction) and fast pyrolysis oils from lignocellulosic biomass and waste. Biocrude from subcritical hydrothermal liquefaction of undigested sewage sludge, produced at reaction conditions of 350 °C and 200 bar in a continuous HTL pilot scale unit, was manually mixed at 70 °C with residual marine fuel (low-sulphur type F-RMG-380 per ISO 8217) at two different nominal biocrude shares, respectively 10 wt.% and 20 wt.% in the mixture. While the former blend resulted in the technically complete dissolution of biocrude in the fossil component, the latter sample formed biocrude agglomerates and only partial dissolution of the biocrude aliquot in marine fuel could be achieved (calculated between 14–16 wt.%). The blend with 10 wt.% of SS biocrude in the mixture resulted in compliance with limits of total acid number (TAN), inorganics (in particular vanadium, sodium, silicon and aluminum) and sulphur content, while only the ash content was slightly above the limit.
Highlights
Maritime transport is an essential component of the European Union’s (EU) transport system both for goods and for the mobility of EU citizens
The choice of the analyses to be performed was mandated primarily by the limited amount of biocrude available, which prevented the possibility of making extensive physical measurements to characterize its properties, and secondarily by the relevance to the compliance of the blend to the fuel specification
The elemental composition was measured because the relative abundances of C, H, O, S, and N for the biocrude and the marine fuel are peculiar and distinct
Summary
Maritime transport is an essential component of the European Union’s (EU) transport system both for goods and for the mobility of EU citizens. As a consequence of the process, organic matter is converted in four phases: the biocrude, which is accounted as the main product and is a generally a heavy oil; an aqueous phase, produced in large volumes with dissolved organics in low concentration; a solid residue; and a gas phase mainly composed of CO2 [4,5]. This crude product could, in principle, well match the heavy nature of most used fossil-based marine fuels, being the ideal candidate for adoption in the sector. Marine fuels are the cheapest fuels on the market, and shifting to a renewable fuel is challenging from an economic point of view
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