Abstract
Biofuels are seen as a potential option for mitigating the effects of fossil fuel use. On the other hand, nutrient pollution is accelerating eutrophication rates in rivers, lakes, and coastal waters. Harvesting aquatic plants to produce biofuels could mitigate this problem, though it is important to attack the problem at source, mainly as regards the contribution of nutrients. For the first time, solid biofuels were obtained in the forms of carbon and pellets from the aquatic plants Egeria densa, which is classed as an invasive plant under the Spanish Catalogue of Exotic Invasive Species, and Lemna minor, both of which can be found in the Umia River in north-west Spain. The essential oils and macro- and microelements present in both these plants were also extracted and analyzed. The higher heating values (HHVs) of the carbon products obtained ranged from 14.28 to 17.25 MJ/kg. The ash content ranged from 22.69% to 49.57%. The maximum yield obtained for biochar for Egeria densa at 200 °C was 66.89%. Temperature significantly affects solid hydrochar yield. The HHVs of the pellets obtained ranged from 11.38 to 13.49 MJ/kg. The use of these species to obtain biofuels through hydrothermal carbonization (HTC) and pellets is a novel and effective approach that will facilitate the removal of nutrients that cause eutrophication in the Umia River. The elements extracted show that harvesting these plants will help to remove excessive nutrients from the ecosystem.
Highlights
Biofuels are seen as a potential option for mitigating the effects of fossil fuel use and reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions [1,2]
The main objective of the present study was to obtain, for the first time, solid biofuels in the form of carbon and pellets from the aquatic plants Egeria densa, which is considered an invasive plant under the Spanish Catalogue of Exotic Invasive Species, and Lemna minor
Statistics compare the the groups. This waswas done using the the Carbon products obtained by hydrothermal carbonization (HTC) were obtained and pellets were produced from E. densa and
Summary
Biofuels are seen as a potential option for mitigating the effects of fossil fuel use and reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions [1,2]. First and second-generation biofuels mainly use food crops, such as corn, sugar beet, and sugarcane, and plant waste biomass, such as agriculture and forest residue [3], plus short rotation plantations of willows, poplars, miscanthus [4], and paulownia [5]. This has some limitations: Some of the resulting biofuels require vast amounts of arable land and compete directly with food crop use [6,7]. Eutrophication is a phenomenon associated with an excess of macro nutrients, especially
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