Prediction of thermochemical conversion of regional agro-industrial wastes to biofuel using isoconversional method

M. A. SAFFE; A. FERNANDEZ; M. ECHEGARAY; G. D. MAZZA; R. RODRÍGUEZ

Buenos Aires

Conferencia; Second RCN Conference on Biofuels & Bioenergy Sustainability; 2016

PanAm RCN, AAIQ - Asociación Argentina de Ingenieros Químicos, AIChE - American Institute of Chemical Engineers, IfS - Institute for Sustainability

Population growth and economic development have increased not only energy consumption in recent years, but also the output of agro-industrial wastes. The handling and disposal of the ever increasing quantities of agro-industrial wastes are becoming matter of public concern and importance, due to the potential environmental and human health impacts. On the other hand, biomasses are regarded as an important renewable alternative energy resource. Obtained products from biomass can be used as substitutes for petroleum or natural gas. Moreover, biofuels are clean energy sources because of their low nitrogen and sulfur contents compared with fossil fuels. Also, such application provides an opportunity to solve their disposal problem and to contribute to neutral CO2 balance. Considering the thermochemical treatments, the more developed technologies are pyrolysis, gasification and combustion. Considering the biomass heterogeneity, their characterization is required, to reliably predict its behavior as a fuel. To biomass thermal conversion, proximate and ultimate analysis are one of the most important characterization methods. On the other hand, the basic organic constituents of biomass have a leading importance for the phase composition and they include three main structural biopolymers, namely cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin. The concentration of these main components essentially important for a better understanding to biomass thermal chemical conversion.