Available online at www.sciencedirect.

com

ScienceDirect
Availableonline
Available onlineatatwww.sciencedirect.com
www.sciencedirect.com
Energy Procedia 00 (2017) 000–000

ScienceDirect
ScienceDirect
www.elsevier.com/locate/procedia

Energy
EnergyProcedia
Procedia142 (2017) 000–000
00 (2017) 271–277
www.elsevier.com/locate/procedia

9th International Conference on Applied Energy, ICAE2017, 21-24 August 2017, Cardiff, UK

Enhanced electricity production from rice straw

The 15th International Symposium on District Heating and Cooling
Arif Darmawana,b,*, Anggoro Cahyo Fitriantoa,c, Muhammad Azizd, Koji Tokimatsua
Assessing the feasibility of using the heat demand-outdoor
Department of Transdisciplinary Science and Engineering, Tokyo Institute of Technology
a

temperature function forGeospatial

a long-term district heat demand forecast
Agency for the Assessment and Application of Technology (BPPT)
b

Information Agency (BIG)

c

d
Institute of Innovative Research, Tokyo Institute of Technology
I. Andrića,b,c*, A. Pinaa, P. Ferrãoa, J. Fournierb., B. Lacarrièrec, O. Le Correc
Abstract
a
IN+ Center for Innovation, Technology and Policy Research - Instituto Superior Técnico, Av. Rovisco Pais 1, 1049-001 Lisbon, Portugal
b
Veolia Recherche & Innovation, 291 Avenue Dreyfous Daniel, 78520 Limay, France
Developing ancDépartement
approach of electricity
Systèmes production
Énergétiques can lead stakeholders
et Environnement to make
- IMT Atlantique, proper
4 rue Alfredand appropriate
Kastler, decisions
44300 Nantes, in the future.
France
This research proposes an integrated system of electricity production from biomass waste which could bring to both economic and
environmental benefit. As case study, straw yield of rice is investigated. In this study, an enhanced integrated system of power
generation is proposed. The integrated system consists of a torrefaction, entrained flow gasification, gas cleaning module, and
Abstractcycle for power generation. As an effort to optimize the heat circulation and minimize the exergy loss throughout the
combined
proposed system, enhanced process integration technology (EPI) is also implemented. By adopting the EPI, the unrecoverable
District
energy or heating
heat in anetworks are commonly
single process addressed
can be recovered andinutilized
the literature
in otherasprocesses
one of the most process
through effectiveintegration.
solutions for decreasingthe
Furthermore, the
greenhouse
influences of gas emissionstemperature
torrefaction from the building sector.
to the total These systems
generated power and require
powerhigh investments
generation whichare
efficiency arealso
returned through Results
investigated. the heat
ofsales. Due toand
calculation themodeling
changedshow climate conditions
a very high energyandefficiency
building of
renovation
integratedpolicies,
system. heat demand
A positive in the
energy future could
harvesting decrease,
with the total
prolonging the investment return period.
power generation efficiency of about 43% can be achieved.
The main scope of this paper is to assess the feasibility of using the heat demand – outdoor temperature function for heat demand
©forecast.
2017 TheThe districtPublished
Authors. of Alvalade, locatedLtd.
by Elsevier in Lisbon (Portugal), was used as a case study. The district is consisted of 665
buildings that
Peer-review undervary in both construction
responsibility periodcommittee
of the scientific and typology.
of theThree weather scenarios
9th International (low,onmedium,
Conference Appliedhigh) and three district
Energy.
renovation scenarios were developed (shallow, intermediate, deep). To estimate the error, obtained heat demand values were
comparedrice
Keywords: with results
straw; from
energy a dynamic
efficiency; heatintegration;
process demand model, previously
exergy recovery; developed and validated by the authors.
gasification
The results showed that when only weather change is considered, the margin of error could be acceptable for some applications
(the error in annual demand was lower than 20% for all weather scenarios considered). However, after introducing renovation
1.scenarios, the error value increased up to 59.5% (depending on the weather and renovation scenarios combination considered).
Introduction
The value of slope coefficient increased on average within the range of 3.8% up to 8% per decade, that corresponds to the
decrease in the number of heating hours of 22-139h during the heating season (depending on the combination of weather and
The demand for energy sustainability has encouraged researchers to study the use of renewable energy sources in
renovation scenarios considered). On the other hand, function intercept increased for 7.8-12.7% per decade (depending on the
replacement of fossilThe
coupled scenarios). fuel. A variety
values of process
suggested could betechnologies
used to modify can the
be used, including
function parameterschemical,
for the biological, electrolytic,
scenarios considered, and
improve the accuracy of heat demand estimations.

© 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Peer-review under responsibility of the Scientific Committee of The 15th International Symposium on District Heating and
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +8180 8191 8922;
Cooling.
E-mail address: arifdarmawan33@gmail.com, arif.d.aa@m.titech.ac.jp
Keywords: Heat demand; Forecast; Climate change
1876-6102 © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 9th International Conference on Applied Energy.

1876-6102 © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Peer-review under responsibility of the Scientific Committee of The 15th International Symposium on District Heating and Cooling.
1876-6102 © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 9th International Conference on Applied Energy .
10.1016/j.egypro.2017.12.043
272 Arif Darmawan et al. / Energy Procedia 142 (2017) 271–277
2 Arif Darmawan / Energy Procedia 00 (2017) 000–000

photolytic and thermo-chemical. Each technology is in a different stage of development, and each offers unique
opportunities, benefits and challenges.
In Indonesia, among numerous available energy sources, biomasses including agricultural wastes play an important
role in the energy matrix. Recently, rice plantation is constantly increasing due to high demand as main food resources
in this country. According to data from the Indonesian Ministry of Agriculture, the total area of rice plantations was
around 8,114,829 ha in 2014 [1]. Annual production of rice straw in Indonesia was 91.753 million tons in 2012, which
is equivalent to approximately 50.974 million tons of coal [2]. Rice plantations is mainly located in Sumatera (27.34%)
and Java-Bali (17.66 %) islands [1]. The high rice production has led to production of huge amount of agricultural
waste consisting of straw and husk. It leads to many problems associated with the improper disposal practices of the
rice waste products such as burning in the open fields during the peak harvesting season [3]. Among these wastes,
straw rice has the largest share, which is about 50% of the total rice plantation product and has the most potential
economic value. Advanced utilization of rice straw, including energy harvesting, is urgently required from both
economic and environmental point of views.
Recently, some researchers have performed studies and proposed the utilization systems of wastes from rice for
energy production. Gasification of rice straw and/or rice husk has been selected as one of the energy conversion
technologies by previous researchers [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9].
However, to the best of authors’ knowledge, the studies dealing with the effort to evaluate integrated power
generation employing exergy recovery from rice straw are very hard to find. In addition, a novel integrated system
consisting of gasification and combined cycle is proposed based on enhanced process integration (EPI). EPI is a
technology combining both exergy recovery and process integration with a purpose of minimizing the exergy
destruction throughout the system.

2. Proposed integrated system

In order to reduce the exergy loss throughout the integrated system significantly, an enhanced process integration
technology (EPI) is utilized. It mainly consists of two combined technologies: exergy recovery and process integration
[10]. Exergy recovery relates to the circulation of the energy involved in any certain process through combination of
exergy elevation and effective heat pairing. This technology has been evaluated in several processes including
biomass-based power generation [11] [12], algal drying [13], and coal-to-hydrogen conversion [14].
Figure 1 presents the conceptual diagram of the overall integrated-system proposed in this study. The integrated
process consists primarily of fluidized bed torrefaction, entrained flow gasification, gas cleaning module and power
generation. The solid, dashed, and dotted lines represent material, electricity and heat, respectively.

Fig. 1. Conceptual diagram of the proposed integrated-system

The feedstock is flowing into torrefaction reactor and furthermore fed to gasification module. Therefore, it is
converted to syngas which consists of fuel gases including hydrogen and carbon monoxide. In the gasifier, pyrolysis,
volatilization, combustion and char gasification reactions subsequently take place and the syngas is sequentially
produced. Overall chemical reaction in the gasifier is shown below,

𝐵𝐵𝐵𝐵𝐵𝐵𝐵𝐵𝐵𝐵𝐵𝐵𝐵𝐵 (𝑤𝑤𝑤𝑤𝑤𝑤) + 𝑂𝑂2 (21% 𝑜𝑜𝑜𝑜 𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎) → 𝛼𝛼1 𝐶𝐶𝐶𝐶4 + 𝛼𝛼2 𝐶𝐶𝐶𝐶 + 𝛼𝛼3 𝐶𝐶𝐶𝐶2 + 𝛼𝛼4 𝐻𝐻2 + 𝛼𝛼5 𝐻𝐻2 𝑂𝑂 + 𝑡𝑡𝑡𝑡𝑡𝑡 (1)
 Arif Darmawan et al. / Energy Procedia 142 (2017) 271–277 273
Arif Darmawan / Energy Procedia 00 (2017) 000–000 3

Where α1, α2, α3, α4 and α5 are the stoichiometric coefficients of CH4, CO, CO2, H2, and H2O, respectively. They
are function of both temperature and char particle size. They are estimated based on literature data obtained from
experimental research. Mohammed et al. [15] [16] investigated air gasification of biomass and reported the effect of
temperature and particle size on the gasification product. The gasification efficiency (total gas yield) increases
significantly with the increasing of gasification temperature. Entrained flow gasifier was adopted due to several
advantages such as; ability to handle practically any biomass feedstock and produce a clean, tar-free syngas and
produce the highest quality syngas [17]. This technology is also rather fuel flexible especially for torrified feedstock
since most gasifiers operate in the slagging range, meaning that the fuel ash is removed from the gasifier as a smelt.
Moreover, the percentage of H2 and CH4 increases with temperature, whereas CO2 decreases. The syngas is cleaned
in the cleaning module before it is used as fuel in the combustor. The syngas is then flowed into the combustor chamber
as fuel for combustion in the combined cycle-based power generation to produce electricity.

2.1. Detailed system for torrefaction process, gasification and combined cycle

Some assumptions in the torrefaction process are made;

(i) A fluidized bed (torrefaction reactor) consisting of a mixer, heat exchanger, and separator
(ii) Ambient temperature is 25 oC
(iii) The adiabatic efficiency of the compressor and blower is 90%;
(iv) The produced syngas consists of H2, CH4, CO, and CO2
(v) Volatile gas consist of H2O (35%), Acetic acid (40%), Methanol (7%), CO2 (14%), CO (4%)
(vi) The heat can be completely transferred in the torrefaction process

Fig. 2. Conceptual diagram of the proposed torrefaction process

274 Arif Darmawan et al. / Energy Procedia 142 (2017) 271–277
4 Arif Darmawan / Energy Procedia 00 (2017) 000–000

Fig. 3. Conceptual diagram of the gasification and combined cycle (see Table 1)

3. Process modeling and calculation

Considering that the production of rice straw collected from the different rice fields, the amount of rice straw that
can be processed and used in this study is 12.4 t h-1. Modeling and calculation of the material and energy balances of
the proposed integrated-system uses a process simulator of SimSci Pro/II (Invensys Corp., UK). Furthermore, some
additional assumptions are made: (i) the minimum temperature difference in all heat exchangers is 30 K; (ii) the
adiabatic efficiency of the compressor and blower is 90%; (iii) there is no heat loss; and (iv). The ambient temperature
is 25 °C. In addition, used air is considered to contain 79 mol% nitrogen and 21 mol% oxygen.
Table 1 shows the calculation conditions for the gasification and combined cycle processes. To evaluate the effect
of torrefaction temperature on total power generation efficiency, three torrefaction temperatures are evaluated: 220
o
C, 250 oC, and 300 oC. The relation between gasification temperature and syngas composition is based on Yu et al
[18]. As the gasification temperature increases, the gasification yield and carbon conversion increase, and therefore
the LHV of the produced syngas increases.

Table 1. Rice straw properties and assumed conditions in each process.

Item Component Value
Rice straw properties Ultimate analysis (wt% db) C: 32.22 H: 5.83 O: 38.58 N: 0.65 S: 0.23
Proximate Analysis (wt% wb) VM: 64.41 FC: 13.11 Ash: 14.88 Moisture: 7.61
LHV MJ kg-1 14.4
Sphericity 0.6
Flow rate (t h-1) 12.4
Gasification Average particle size (mm) 0.3
Type Entrained flow gasifier
Residence time 0.96 to 2.98
Temperature (oC) 1200
Power generation Combustor and gas turbine
 Arif Darmawan et al. / Energy Procedia 142 (2017) 271–277 275
Arif Darmawan / Energy Procedia 00 (2017) 000–000 5

Discharge pressure (MPa) 0.15

Combustor pressure drop (%) 2
Gas turbine isentropic efficiency (%) 90
HRSG and steam turbine
HRSG outlet pressure (MPa) 20
HRSG pressure drop (%) 1
Steam turbine isentropic efficiency (%) 90
Minimum vapor quality at ST outlet (%) 90

Net power efficiency of integrated system is calculated by

𝑃𝑃𝑔𝑔𝑔𝑔𝑔𝑔𝑔𝑔𝑔𝑔 − 𝑃𝑃𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖 (2)

𝜂𝜂𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛 =
𝑚𝑚̇𝑅𝑅𝑅𝑅 × 𝐿𝐿𝐿𝐿𝐿𝐿𝑅𝑅𝑅𝑅

where, Pgross, Pint, 𝑚𝑚̇𝑅𝑅𝑅𝑅 , and 𝐿𝐿𝐿𝐿𝐿𝐿𝑅𝑅𝑅𝑅 are gross generated power, internally consumed power, mass flow rate of rice
straw, and LHV of rice straw, respectively..

4. Preliminary result

Fig. 4 shows the relationship between the torrefaction temperature and the produced syngas. An increasing
temperature from 220 oC to 250 oC results in a significant rise in the calorific value of syngas. The increasing of
torrefaction temperature from 250 to 300 oC is relatively not significant considering the required energy in torrefaction
process.

Fig. 4. Effect of the torrefaction temperature for the produced syngas and required energy.

In the higher temperature gasification that lead to higher temperature of syngas, the heat recovery can significantly
increase as well. It is also important to minimize the heat losses from the gasifier in order to achieve as high efficiency
as possible. As the syngas contains some organic matter, like tar, which will condense as the temperature decreases,
the syngas is not allowed to reach temperatures lower than 600 oC. In addition, although the air-to-fuel ratio increases
because of the higher compressor duty to compress the air for combustion, the net generated power in the gas turbine
module is still positive and increases with increasing gasification temperature. The other duties, which is the work
276 Arif Darmawan et al. / Energy Procedia 142 (2017) 271–277
6 Arif Darmawan / Energy Procedia 00 (2017) 000–000

required for compression and pumping, is relatively small compared to the work generated in the combined cycle
module. Hence, the total net generated power rises significantly as the gasification temperature increases.
Gasification temperature does not only influence the produced syngas composition but also the quality of steam
entering the steam turbine as its heat is also used to superheat the steam before flowing into the steam turbine. The
gas turbine inlet temperature is fixed at about 1300 oC, commensurate with currently available gas turbine technology.
Other parameters such as the amount of recirculated water for the steam turbine are adjusted to achieve optimum total
energy efficiency.

Fig. 5. Effect of the torrefaction temperature on the system efficiency

The overall efficiency of the system at fixed gasification temperature 1200 oC, increases from 39.4% to 42.6%
when the torrefaction temperature is increased from 220 oC to 250 oC. This overall power generation efficiency
considers the power generated by both turbines and all the duties involved in the integrated processes, including
compression, and water pumping. A torrefaction temperature 250 oC strongly improves the overall power generation
efficiency. By employing the exergy recovery, the proposed integrated-system with the exergy recovery can improve
the overall net energy efficiency to 42.6%.

5. Conclusion

 The integrated system of rice straw for power generation is proposed and evaluated with different gasification
parameters. The system by employing exergy recovery and without exergy recovery is also compared.
 This study shows how the process temperature, the syngas yield, the exergy recovery and the process
integration affects the overall system efficiency.
 The proposed integrated-system with EPI can achieve the total net energy efficiency of 42.6% in the
torrefaction temperature 250 oC.
 For further development, a comprehensive study should be conducted to clarify the feasibility, including
economic, resources and technical aspects

Acknowledgements

The authors also greatly appreciate the support of The Indonesia Endowment Fund for Education (LPDP) Ristek-
Pro Program sponsored by Ministry of Research Technology and Higher Education of Indonesia (RISTEKDIKTI).
 Arif Darmawan et al. / Energy Procedia 142 (2017) 271–277 277
Arif Darmawan / Energy Procedia 00 (2017) 000–000 7

References

[1] Agriculture Statistic report of Food Crops, BPS-Statistics Indonesia 2014

[2] Makhrani, "Potential Analysis of Rice Straw as an Alternative Energy Source for Substitute Coal in Indonesia", Applied Mechanics and
Materials, Vol. 554, pp
[3] Garivait IS, Chaiyo U, Patumsawad S, Deakhuntod J. Physical and chemical properties of Thai biomass fuels from agricultural residues. In:
The 2nd joint international conference on sustainable energy and environment (SEE 2006); 2006
[4] Calvo LF, Gil MV, Otero M, Moran A, Garcı ´a AI. Gasification of rice straw in a fluidized-bed gasifier for syngas application in close-coupled
boiler-gasifier systems. Bioresour Technol 2012;109:206e14.
[5] ] Murakami K, Kasai K, Kato T, Sugawara K. Conversion of rice straw into valuable products by hydrothermal treatment and steam gasification.
Fuel 2012;93:37e43.
[6] Prabowo B., Umeki K., Yan M., Nakamura M.R., Castaldi M.J. and Yoshikawa K. CO2−steam mixture for direct and indirect gasification of
rice straw in a downdraft gasifier: Laboratoryscale experiments and performance prediction. Appl. Energy, 113, 670−679 (2014)
[7] Chiang KY, Lin YX, Lu CH, Chien KL, Lin MH, Wu CC, et al. Gasification of rice straw in an updraft gasifier using water purification sludge
containing Fe/Mn as a catalyst. Int J Hydrogen Energy 2013;38:12318e24.
[8] Yuan S, Dai ZH, Zhou ZJ, Chen XL, Yu GS, Wang FC. Rapid co-pyrolysis of rice straw and a bituminous coal in a high frequency furnace and
gasification of the residual char. Bioresour Technol 2012;109:188e97
[9] Lu Ding, Yan Gong, Yifei Wang, Fuchen Wang, Guangsuo Yu. Characterisation of the morphological changes and interactions in char, slag
and ash during CO2 gasification of rice straw and lignite. Appl. Energy 195 (2017) 713-724
[10] Aziz M. Power generation from algae employing enhanced process integration technology. Chem. Eng. Res. Des. 109 (2016) 297–306
[11] Prabowo B, Aziz M, Umeki K, Susanto H, Yan M, Yoshikawa K. CO2-recycling biomass gasification system for highly efficient and carbon-
negative power generation. Appl. Energy 158 (2015) 97–106.
[12] Darmawan et al. Enhanced process integration of black liquor evaporation, gasification, and combined cycle. Appl Energy
(2017), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2017.05.058
[13] Aziz M, Oda T, Kashiwagi T. Enhanced high energy efficient steam drying of algae. Appl. Energy 109 (2013) 163–170.
[14] Aziz M, Juangsa FB, Kurniawan W, Budiman BA. Clean Co-production of H 2 and power from low rank coal. Energy 116 (2016) 489–497.
[15] Mohammed MAA, Salmiaton A, Wan Azlina WAKG, Mohammad Amran MS, Fakhru’l-Razi A, Taufiq-Yap YH. Hydrogen rich gas from oil
palm biomass as a potential source of renewable energy in Malaysia. Renew Sustain Energy Rev 2011;15:1258–70.
[16] Mohammed MAA, Salmiaton A, Wan Azlina WAKG, Mohammad Amran MS. Gasification of oil palm empty fruit bunches: a characterization
and kinetic study. Bioresour Technol 2012;110:628–36
[17] F. Weiland, H. Wiinikka, H. Hedman, M. Marklund och R. Gebart, ”Pressurized entrained flow gasification of biomass powder - initial results
from pilot plant experiments,” i NWBC 2012 The 4th Nordic Wood Biorefinery Conference, Helsinki, Finland, 2012.
[18] Haimiao Yu, Geng Chen, Yangyang Xu, Dezhen Chen. Experimental Study on the Gasification Characteristics of Biomass with CO2/Air in
an Entrained-flow Gasifier. BioResources 11(3) 6085-6096