INVESTIGATION OF ORGANIC WASTES CONVERSION INTO USEFUL ENERGY RESOURCES USING PYROLYSIS PROCESS

Abstract

The depletion of fossil fuels is a major concern for the world because of the demand for energy that has increased rapidly with population growth and urbanization. For sustainable development, energy producing industries are trying to find suitable substitutes for petroleum fuel that are environmentally friendly and economically feasible. Biomass ,such as bio-oil and biochar production, could be a possible alternative energy source. Production of biochar and bio-oil from chicken manure(CM) by the pyrolysis process could be a robust approach for organic waste recycling. In this work, experiments were conducted to examine the effect of pyrolysis temperature on the quality of chicken manure biochar (CMB) and to identify the optimal pyrolysis temperature for the conversion of CM into biochar. As the maximum pyrolysis temperature gradually increased from 350 to 650OC, the biochar yield, total nitrogen content in biochar, organic carbon (OC) content, and cation exchange capacity (CEC) of the produced biochar decreased ,while the pH value, ash content and BET surface area of the biochar increased. The generated biochar showed yields of 44.87�61.15% reported to raw material mass, organic carbon of 320�370 g/kg, pH value of 9.4�11.7, BET surface area of 2.65�6.35 m2/g and CEC of 50.21� 31.45 cmolc/kg. The maximum transformation of organic carbon from CM to biochar occurred at 550 OC, however 80.5% of N contained in CM was lost to volatile compounds at this temperature. To produce CMB for use as fertilizer, a temperature value of 350 OC should be selected in pyrolysis process while for environmental applications, 550OC is a suitable temperature value. The obtained results suggest that chicken manure could be used as potential feedstocks for slow pyrolysis process to produce high-value products useful as energy resources.