Bio-oil from cow manure. Efect of the pyrolysis temperature.

FACUNDO CABRERA; MIJAIL ZEGALO; BERTERO MELISA; ULISES SEDRAN

Venecia

Simposio; 6th International Symposium on Energy from Biomass and Waste; 2016

Ordine degli Ingegneri della Provincia di Venezia

After the consolidation of concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) systems (feedlots) in the last few decades, the need for proper options to handle their livestock wastes, became strongly evident. Presently, cattle manure is used mainly as organic fertilizer, but both its significant production and associated environmental problems (eutrofization of surface waterand pollution of groundwaters, methane and odorous compound emissions) make it necessary the search for alternative management and new applications. Annually more than 1.5 million tons of cattle manure can be estimated in Argentina. The obtention of liquid products (bio-oil and tar) from the pyrolysis of cattle manure is an option which deserves to be studied, as it can be implemented at the farm-scale by means of modular and/or mobile pyrolysis units, which are available in the technology market. Liquid products could be then catalytically upgraded into transportation fuels,petrochemical raw materials and/or bioasphalts. Only a few reports exist about the use of livestockwaste as the raw material in pyrolysis processes, which were produced mainly at the laboratory level with batch reactors or micro scale thermogravimetry units, the characterization of the raw material and liquid products being unsufficient.The pyrolysis of cattle manure and the impact of process temperature on the product distribution were studied in this work, emphasis being given to the characterization of the liquid products, which is necessary to further upgrade them into high added value products.