Abstract
The thermal pyrolysis of agriculture biomass has been studied in a fixed-bed reactor, where the pyrolysis was conducted at a steady temperature of 800 °C. This work analyses the pyrolysis products of six agricultural wastes: pistachio husks, walnut husks, sunflower hulls, buckwheat husks, corncobs and coconut shells. The conducted research compared examples of large waste biomass streams from different parts of the world as a potential source of renewable energy. Additionally, the kinetics of the reaction with the activation energy were analyzed and calculated for all raw materials in pyrolysis process. Biochars are characterised by higher combustion heat in comparison to the raw material samples. The average value of the heat of combustion increased due to pyrolysis process from 10 MJ/kg, with minimal value of 2.7 MJ/kg (corncob) and maximum of 13.0 MJ/kg for coconut, which is also characterised by the maximal absolute combustion heating value (32.3 MJ/kg). The increase in calorific values varied from 15% to 172% (with 54% reference for wood chips), which indicates that charring is an effective method for increasing the energy concentration. The obtained biochar were compared with wood chips, which are widely used solid fuel of organic origin. The studied biomass-derived fuels are characterised by lower ash contribution than wood. An analogous observation was made for the obtained biochars, whose ash contribution was lower than for the chips in terms of both unit-mass and unit-combustion-heat. The main advantage of this method is the production of solid fuel from biomass, which increases the calorific value and bulk density of biochar in comparison to raw material.
Highlights
The analysis showed that buckwheat husks were the least susceptible to high temperatures and lost the least mass percentage, 73%, while sunflower husks lost the largest amount, almost 90%
The analysis of the degradation curves of raw materials confirm that the pyrolysis begins at about 250 ◦ C and finished up to 400 ◦ C, where the mass of samples is reduced to 30% of initial mass
The results obtained in this study prove that the pyrolysis process could be an effective method for increasing the energy of biomass material concentration in a unit of mass
Summary
Renewable Energy Sources (RES) are experiencing growth in the global share of energy production [9] This increase in RES in the global share in energy published maps and institutional affiliations. To emphasise the importance of legal regulations for research and the development of a given type of fuel—in this case, biomass of agricultural origin—we use the example of the obligation to use a mass share of the biomass of agricultural origin in the overall biomass used to generate electricity introduced in 2018 in Poland This regulation requires a total share of 85% for multi-fuel combustion installations and dedicated multi-fuel combustion installations with an installed electrical capacity greater than 5 MW.
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