Abstract
Rural areas of developing countries often have poor energy infrastructure and so rely on a very local supply. A local energy supply in rural Uganda frequently has problems such as limited accessibility, unreliability, a high expense, harmful to health and deforestation. By carbonizing waste biomass streams, available to those in rural areas of developing countries through a solar resource, it would be possible to create stable, reliable fuels with more consistent calorific values. An energy demand calculator is reported to assess the different energy demands of various thermochemical processes that can be used to create biofuel. The energy demand calculator then relates the energy required to the area of solar collector required for an integrated system. Pyrolysis was shown to require the least amount of energy to process 1 kg of biomass when compared to steam treatment and hydrothermal carbonization (HTC). This was due to the large amount of water required for steam treatment and HTC. A resource assessment of Uganda is reported, to which the energy demand calculator has been applied. Quantitative data are presented for agricultural residues, forestry residues, animal manure and aquatic weeds found within Uganda. In application to rural areas of Uganda, a linear Fresnel HTC integration shows to be the most practical fit. Integration with a low temperature steam treatment would require more solar input for less carbonization due to the energy required to vaporize liquid water.
Highlights
Those living in rural areas of developing nations face many daily problems, including but not limited to, having access to a clean cook fuel with an appropriate energy content
By carbonizing biomass to create a solid fuel that can be used for cooking, it would be possible to help in solving the above problems faced daily for those living in rural areas of developing nations
The quantitative review will normalize the biomass by reporting the higher heating values (HHVs), showing which biomass sources will make for a feasible feedstock within Uganda
Summary
Those living in rural areas of developing nations face many daily problems, including but not limited to, having access to a clean cook fuel with an appropriate energy content. Two examples of a high solid yield produced by solar pyrolysis, which are perhaps of a higher relevancy to this study, include work conducted by Ramos et al and Hans et al Ramos was able to produce 70 g of biochar from 180 g of wood implying a char yield of 38%. His parabolic solar concentrator had a surface area of 1.37 m2 and its receiver hit temperatures of above 270 ◦ C. The quantitative review will normalize the biomass by reporting the higher heating values (HHVs), showing which biomass sources will make for a feasible feedstock within Uganda
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