Estimation of higher heating value of biomass from proximate analysis: A new approach

Heating value of biomass is necessary to analyze and design any bio-energy systems. The experimental methods to estimate the heating value are time consuming as well as expensive and have higher possibilities of experimental errors. Many correlations have been published for estimating higher heating values of biomass, coal, and other solid fuels based on proximate analysis. In this paper, a new approach of linear correlations is proposed, developed, and analyzed for its forecasting errors. Two hundred and fifty published data with the higher heating values ranging from 5.63 to 23.46 MJ/kg are used to develop the correlations. The best correlation, which has least errors, is selected and subjected to develop non-linear correlations to decrease its estimation errors. The selected linear and non-linear correlations are validated by using experimentally determined higher heating values of biomass. The correlations are also compared with other published correlations. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.