ABSTRACT: A methodology was developed to assess the allocation of different types of endogenous waste biomass to eight technologies for producing electricity, heat, biogas and advanced biofuels. It was based on the identification of key physicochemical parameters for each conversion process and the definition of limit values for each parameter, applied to two different matrices of waste biomass. This enabled th...
ABSTRACT: This work evaluated the effects of condensable syngas impurities on the cell viability and product distribution of Butyribacterium methylotrophicum in syngas fermentation. The condensates were collected during the gasification of two technical lignins derived from wheat straw (WST) and softwood (SW) at different temperatures and in the presence or absence of catalysts. The cleanest syngas with 169 and...
ABSTRACT: This paper reviews the most recent information about the main operations to produce energy from carbonaceous materials, namely biomass and wastes through the integration of gasification, syngas cleaning and solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs), which have shown to be a good option for combined heat and power (CHP) production, due to high efficiency and low environmental impact. However, some challenges stil...
ABSTRACT: Second-generation biorefineries produce large streams of low-grade lignin. Its thermochemical conversion, through gasification, enables the carbon recovery from an otherwise recalcitrant by-product. The main product of gasification is producer synthesis gas (PS), which is mainly composed by carbon monoxide (CO), carbon dioxide (CO2), hydrogen (H2), methane (CH4) and minor impurities. Carboxydotrophic ...
ABSTRACT: As an innovation to conventional biomass pyrolysis to produce liquid biofuels, different types of biomass wastes were pre-treated by autohydrolysis, prior to pyrolysis. Eucalyptus forestry waste, corn cobs agricultural residue, and miscanthus (an energy crop) were autohydrolysed. Autohydrolysis led to valuable sugar-rich stream that may be used in fermentation and to solids rich in lignin that were py...
ABSTRACT: It is imperative to find novel environmental friendly liquid fuels to be used in the long distance transportation sector. Pyrolysis of wastes may have an important role in the near future to attain this goal. Biomass pyrolysis has also been widely studied by several researchers, but besides the potentialities of such technology, the bio-oil obtained still has to overcome some challenges related to its...
ABSTRACT: Eucalyptus has been largely used in the pulp and paper industry in Iberian Peninsula, due to its fast growth and high productivity. This eucalyptus utilisation has generated high amounts of wastes, including leaves, branches and stumps. Hence, these wastes were selected for the co-pyrolysis studies to produce liquid fuels or raw materials. As an alternative to the conventional biomass pyrolysis, bioma...
ABSTRACT: It is predictable that liquid fuels will be needed for long distance transport sector for quite some years. Thus, it is imperative to find alternative fuels to reduce the dependency on petroleum derived fuels and to decrease the negative environmental impact. Co-liquefaction of coal and wastes, like plastics, to produce liquid fuels and raw materials for several industries may play an important role i...
Gasification of spent lignin pellets was used to obtain a gas suitable for energy production. Spent lignin was obtained from second-generation cellulosic ethanol demo plant using wheat straw as feedstock. Gasification of lignin did not give rise to any feeding problems, thus no significant changes were needed in the existing gasification installation. The rise of temperature and steam flow rate favoured the for...
n the pulp and paper industry in Iberian Peninsula there is an intensive use of eucalyptus globulus that has a fast growth and a high productivity. There are large areas of forest dedicated to its growth. After 9 to 12 year rotation cycles trees are cut and the stumps are left in the fields. After 2 or 3 harvesting cycles these tree stumps are removed from the fields and considered low value biomass wastes. Thi...