Lecture 2

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Biomass and Waste Conversion Technology

MEP 414
Dr. Mostafa Abdelkhalek
Biomass Characterization
Lecture Two
Importance of Biomass Characterization

• The characteristics of biomass greatly


influence the performance of a biomass
conversion system whether it is
1. Combustor
2. Torrefier
3. Pyrolyzer
4. Gasifier
TORREFACTION
• A thermochemical process in an inert or limited
oxygen environment where biomass is slowly heated
to within a specified temperature range and retained
there for a specified time such that it results in near
complete degradation of its hemicellulose content
while maximizing mass and energy yield of solid
product.
• Typical temperature range for this process is
between 200C and 300C.
Pyrolysis
• Pyrolysis is a thermochemical decomposition of biomass into
a range of useful products, either in the total absence of
oxidizing agents or with a limited supply that does not permit
gasification to an appreciable extent.
• It also forms several initial reaction steps of gasification.
• During pyrolysis, large complex hydrocarbon molecules of
biomass break down into relatively smaller and simpler
molecules of gas, liquid, and char
• Pyrolysis of biomass is typically carried out in a temperature
range of 300 - 650C compared to 800 - 1000C for gasification
and 200 - 300C for torrefaction.
Gasification
• Gasification is the conversion of solid or liquid feedstock into
useful and convenient gaseous fuel or chemical feedstock that
can be burned to release energy or used for production of
value-added chemicals
• Gasification is a process that converts organic- or fossil fuel-
based carbonaceous materials into carbon
monoxide, hydrogen and carbon dioxide.
• This is achieved by reacting the material at high temperatures
(>700 °C), without combustion, with a controlled amount
of oxygen and/or steam.
• The resulting gas mixture is called syngas (from synthesis gas)
or producer gas and is itself a fuel.
Physical Properties
• Permeability
• Densities
Densities
• Density is an important design parameter for
any biomass conversion system.
• For a granular biomass, we can define four
characteristic densities:
1. True Density
2. Apparent Density
3. Bulk Density
4. Biomass (Growth) Density
True Density
• True density is the weight per unit volume
occupied by the solid constituent of biomass.
• Total weight is divided by actual volume of the
solid content to give its true density.
Apparent Density
• The apparent density considers the internal pores of a
biomass particle but not the interstitial volume between
biomass particles packed together.

The pore volume of a biomass expressed as a fraction of its total


volume is known as its porosity, εp. This is an important
characteristic of the biomass.
Bulk Density
• Bulk density is based on the overall space occupied by an
amount or a group of biomass particles.
• Bulk volume includes interstitial volume between the
particles, and as such it depends on how the biomass is
packed.
Bulk Density
• The total mass of the biomass may contain the
green moisture of a living plant, external
moisture collected in storage, and moisture
inherent in the biomass.
• Once the biomass is dried in a standard oven,
its mass reduces.
• Thus, the density can be based on either
green or oven-dry depending on if its weight
includes surface moisture.
Biomass (Growth) Density
• The total amount of above-ground living organic matter in
trees expressed as oven-dry tons per unit area (e.g., tons per
hectare) and includes all organic materials: leaves, twigs,
branches, main bole, bark, and trees.
Permeability
• Property of a material that lets fluids (such as water or
water vapor) to diffuse through it to another medium
without being chemically or physically affected.
• Permeability is an important factor in pyrolysis.
• High permeability allows pyrolysis gases to be trapped
in the pores, increasing their residence time in the
reaction zone.
Thermodynamic Properties
• Thermal Conductivity
• Specific Heat
• Heat of Formation
• Heat of Combustion (Reaction)
• Heating Value
• Ignition Temperature
Thermal Conductivity
• Biomass particles are subject to heat conduction along and
across their fiber, which in turn influences their pyrolysis
behavior.
• Thus, the thermal conductivity of the biomass is an important
parameter in this context.
• It changes with density and moisture

where sp.gr is the specific gravity of the fuel and md is the


moisture percentage of the biomass on a dry basis (db).
Thermal Conductivity
• Unlike metal and other solids, biomass is highly anisotropic.
• The thermal conductivity along fibers of biomass is different
from that across them.
• Conductivity also depends on the biomass’ moisture content,
porosity, and temperature.
• Some of these depend on the degree of conversion as the
biomass undergoes combustion or gasification.
Anisotropic Substances
• What are anisotropic substances?
• When the properties of a material vary with
different crystallographic orientations, the
material is said to be anisotropic.
• Alternately, when the properties of a material
are the same in all directions, the material is
said to be isotropic.
Thermal Conductivity
Specific Heat
• Specific heat is an important thermodynamic property of biomass
often required for thermodynamic calculations.
• It is an indication of the heat capacity of a substance.
• Both moisture and temperature affect the specific heat of
biomass, but density or wood species do not have much effect on
the specific heat.
• The specific heat changes much with temperature.
• It also depends to some extent on the type and source of biomass.
• It also shows that bark of the wood has higher specific heat than
its hearth wood.
• Char produced from this wood has interestingly much lower
specific heat.
Specific Heat
Specific Heat
Heat of Formation
• Heat of formation, also known as enthalpy of formation, is the
enthalpy change when 1 mol of compound is formed at
standard state (25C, 1 atm) from its constituting elements in
their standard state.
Heat of Formation
Heat of Combustion (Reaction)
• The heat of reaction (HR) is the amount of heat released or absorbed
in a chemical reaction with no change in temperature. In the context
of combustion reactions, HR is called heat of combustion, ΔH comb,
which can be calculated from the heat of formation (HF) as
• Q= Hp – HR
Example
• Q= Hp – HR
• Q = - 476 kJ/mol
• Hp= HFCO2 + 0.675 HFH2O = - 393.5 - 0.6753 (-241.5)
• HR= HFsw +1.029HFO2 = HFsw + 1.029 x 0
• Then HFsw = - 80.5 kJ/mol
Heating Value
• The heating value of biomass is the amount of
energy biomass releases when it is completely
burnt in adequate oxygen.
• It is one of the most important properties of
biomass as far as energy conversion is concerned.
• Compared to most fossil fuels, the heating value
of biomass is low, especially on a volume basis,
because its density is very low and it is high
oxygen containing fuel.
Higher Heating Value (HHV)
• It is defined as the amount of heat released by the
unit mass or volume of fuel (initially at 25C) once
it is combusted and the products have returned to
a temperature of 25C.
• It includes the latent heat of vaporization of water.
• HHV is also called gross calorific value.
• In North America, the thermal efficiency of a
system is usually expressed in terms of HHV, so it
is important to know the HHV of the design fuel.
Lower Heating Value (LHV)
• The lower heating value (LHV), also known as the net calorific
value, is defined as the amount of heat released by fully
combusting a specified quantity less the heat of vaporization
of the water in the combustion product.
• The relationship between HHV and LHV is given by

where LHV, HHV, H, and M are lower heating value, higher


heating value, hydrogen percentage, and moisture percentage,
respectively, on an “ar” basis.
Here, hg is the latent heat of steam in the same units as HHV.
The latent heat of vaporization when the reference temperature
is 100C is 2260 kJ/kg.
Lower Heating Value (LHV)
• Many European countries define the efficiency of a thermal
system in terms of LHV.
• Thus, an efficiency expressed in this way appears higher than
that expressed in HHV (as is the norm in many countries,
including the United States and Canada), unless the basis is
specified.
Ignition Temperature
• Ignition temperature is an important property of
any fuel because the combustion reaction of the
fuel becomes self-sustaining only above this
temperature.
• In a typical gasifier, a certain amount of
combustion is necessary to provide the energy
required for drying and pyrolysis and finally for the
endothermic gasification reaction.
• In torrefier, temperature of cooled product should
be lower than its ignition temperature.
Ignition Temperature
• When the fuel is heated by some external means,
the rate of exothermic reaction increases with a
corresponding increase in the heat generation rate.
• Above a certain temperature, the rate of heat
generation matches or exceeds the rate of heat
loss.
• When this happens, the process becomes self-
sustaining and that minimum temperature is called
the ignition temperature.
Ignition Temperature

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