Handling of Biomass, Convert This Problem To Opportunity: Prasoon Kumar Gupta 187048 Chemical Engineering Department
Handling of Biomass, Convert This Problem To Opportunity: Prasoon Kumar Gupta 187048 Chemical Engineering Department
Handling of Biomass, Convert This Problem To Opportunity: Prasoon Kumar Gupta 187048 Chemical Engineering Department
Direct Anaerobic
Fermentation
Combustion Digestion
Pyrolysis Extraction
Gasification
Brief Overview
Of These Technologies
Combustion of Biomass
1. Combustion is a high-temperature exothermic redox chemical reaction
between a fuel and an oxidant.
n*(CH1.44O0.66 + 1.03 O2 = 0.72 H2O + CO2)
2. Rising fossil fuel costs and the development of advanced equipment made
biomass combustion an economical, efficient and practical source of
energy.
3. Combustion produces 15-20 megajoules of energy per kilogram of dry
biomass.
4. Biomass combustion systems can generate hot air, hot water, steam,
electricity, or a combination, depending on Requirements.
Anaerobic digestion
1. Anaerobic Digestion (AD) is a process where plant and animal materials
are broken down by micro-organisms in the absence of air.
2. Main product obtained from this is Methane, and the by product can be
used as a fertilizer.
3. Anaerobic Digestion is versatile in feed that can be used. E.g. food waste,
slurry, manure, as well as crops and their residue.
4. About (AD) Efficiency, according to studies efficiency varies from 20-
70% depending on the feed type and feed quality.
Data Reference:
Evaluating digestion efficiency in full-scale anaerobic digesters by identifying active microbial populations through the lens of
microbial activity//Ran Mei, Takashi Narihiro, Masaru K. Nobu, Kyohei Kuroda & Wen-Tso Liu
Fermentation
1. Fermentation is especially suitable when the biomass waste have a high
sugar or water content, as is the case with a variety of agricultural wastes
e.g. Bagasse.
2. In this organic materials are break down into glucose.
3. Yeast or bacillus are added to the biomass, they feed on the sugars to
produce main product ethanol and side product carbon dioxide
4. There is a series of chemical reactions which is used to get alcohol or acid
from sugars.
Pyrolysis
• Pyrolysis is the thermal
decomposition of biomass
occurring in the absence of
oxygen.
• Biochar, bio-oil, and gases like
methane, hydrogen, carbon
monoxide, and carbon dioxide
are main product of biomass
pyrolysis.
• Among other methods
pyrolysis is most efficient
having efficiency of about 80-
89%.
Data Reference:
https://www.researchgate.net/post/How_to_calculate_the_thermal_e
fficiency_of_a_pyrolysis_reactor
18,000 Megawatt
Of biomass energy can be produced in India
Data Reference:
Ministry Of New And Renewable Energy: https://mnre.gov.in/bio-energy/current-status
Learnings and
Contributions
Some of them are listed as:
• As we saw that biomass is still not a perfect carbon neutral process, but if we
integrate a carbon capture technology, we can easily counter one of the major
drawback of Biomass energy. E.g. (seeo2energy.com)
• High-quality biomass (wood) is best, but is limited, expensive and not always
sustainable to have. So we can utilize agroforestry residues, it is high availability
and fully environmentally friendly.
• Chipping, pelleting, briquetting activities, enhance biomass energy density
increasing transportation efficiency.(Team Hermetica did a Project on Briquetting
in 2019).
Conclusion
I would like to conclude my presentation.
Biomass is a vast topic, and it still needs proper attention form our industry to
use it for good.
Thankyou!
Any questions?
Credits
Special thanks to all people/researchers who made and shared these awesome
resources :