4.7 Article

Torrefaction of fruit peel waste to produce environmentally friendly biofuel

Journal

JOURNAL OF CLEANER PRODUCTION
Volume 284, Issue -, Pages -

Publisher

ELSEVIER SCI LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.124676

Keywords

Torrefaction; Fruit peel waste; Fuel ratio; Environmentally friendly; Energy return on investment (EROI); Greenhouse gas (GHG) emission

Funding

  1. Ministry of Science and Technology in Taiwan [100-2221-E-327-043, 101-2221-E-327-021, 107-2221-E-992-008-MY3]

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The study found that torrefaction temperature, not the reaction duration, had a dominant influence on the characteristics of the produced biochar. As temperature and time increased, fixed carbon and ash contents rose while volatile matter content and EROI decreased. Cofiring biochar with coal in power plants had the potential to increase HHV, energy density, and combustion efficiency while reducing GHG emissions.
This study torrefied Ananas comosus peel (ACp) and Annona squamosa peel (ASp) samples at different temperatures (210-300 degrees C) for different durations (30 and 60 min) to produce biochar as a renewable energy source. Analysis results indicated that the torrefaction temperature, not the reaction duration, had a dominant influence on the characteristics of the produced biochar. The ACp biochar had a maximum higher heating value (HHV) of 27.7 MJ/kg and maximum energy density of 1.58, which were higher than those of the ASp biochar. As the torrefaction temperature and time increased, the fixed carbon and ash contents and the fuel ratio (FR) increased gradually for both types of biochar, but the volatile matter content and energy return on investment (EROI) decreased. The hydrogen/carbon and oxygen/carbon atomic ratios of both types of biochar are comparable to those reported for lignite. Thermogravimetric and derivative thermogravimetric analyses confirmed that the thermal stability of both types of fruit waste increased considerably with the torrefaction temperature. Furthermore, the ACp biochar had a maximum EROI of 22.9 and FR of 0.36. When 10%-20% biochar was cofired with 80%-90% bituminous coal in a power plant, the FR (1.80-1.84 and 1.60-1.67)-representing combustion efficiency-approximated that of bituminous coal (1.5-2.5), but greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions decreased significantly (83.7%-94.3%). Taken together, the cofiring of ACp biochar or Asp with coal is potentially viable and economically beneficial for increasing the HHV, energy density, fixed carbon content, FR, and EROI of these materials while reducing GHG emissions, rendering these materials suitable for partially replacing bituminous coal in power plants. (C) 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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