The deashed charcoal—oil—water mixture: a liquid fuel for biomass energetical valorization

Abstract

Biomass is often considered an important alternative resource for the world's growing demand for energy resources. The problem of producing a high calorific value and low ash content charcoal slurry is discussed in this paper. The process presented is a deashing-slurry formation process based on selective oil agglomeration to prepare a ternary deashed charcoal—oil—water mixture (DCOWM). Non-ionic ethoxylated surfactants have been tested successfully for DCOWM preparation. A DCOWM of 45% solid content and 27% oil content has been prepared wit a Meranti tree charcoal deashed to 0.90 wt.% ash content. The charcoal, containing 29% volatile matter, was ground to 8 μm mean diameter. The slurry obtained has 24 671 kJ kg −1 low calorific value and 0.41 wt.% residual ash content.