Biomass and Fuel cell Technology_ Lecture 2

From previous lecture

RESOURCES AND SUSTAINABLE POTENTIAL OF
BIOMASS
• A variety of biomass sources can be converted to enable energy supply. These can be
divided into six categories, based on their properties;
1. Forestry products, waste, and residues, which can be subdivided into:
• Stem-wood logs and wood chips
• Primary forestry residues:
o Logging residues
o Stumps
• Secondary forestry residues:
o Wood processing by-products and residues
o Bark, cutter chips, and sawdust
• Tertiary residues:
o Demolition wood (e.g., from furniture)
2. Agricultural residues and wastes (also called herbaceous species), which
are subdivided into three categories:
• Primary (or direct harvest-related) residues, e.g., straw and vineyard
residues
• Secondary residues, which are generated after processing harvested
material:
o Bagasse (residue from sugar production from sugarcane)
o Molasses and vinasse
o Nutshells
o Press cakes or pulp (from, e.g., olive and other vegetable oil
o processing)
o Rice husks
• Tertiary residues: manures from (domesticated) animals, such as
chickens,
o cows, and pigs—dung and litter
3. Industrial and municipal organic wastes, e.g.:
• Biodegradable part of municipal solid waste
• Biogenic part of refuse-derived fuel
4. Derivatives, e.g.:
• Residues from the food processing industry
• Waste from the pulp and paper industry (“black liquor”)
5. Aquatic species, namely:
• Microalgae
• Macroalgae (seaweeds)
6. Energy crops, which are grown with the aim to supply energy carriers, e.g.:
• Sugar-producing crops: sugar beet, sugarcane, and sweet sorghum
• Crops rich in starch: barley, cassava, corn, potato, and rye
• Vegetable oil-containing crops: Jatropha, palm oil, rapeseed, soy, and
sunflower
• Fast-growing reed and grass plants, such as hemp, kenaf, and miscanthus
(these are sometimes called “energy plants”)
• Short rotation wood (e.g., eucalyptus, poplar, willow)
 Lecture 2
Biomass Composition,
Properties, &
Characterization
Physicochemical Properties
i.e. physical characteristics and chemical composition
• Table 2.1 presents an overview of the most important physical
properties of solid biomass (and derived solid products) that are
relevant for its behavior in the chain from harvesting to conversion
processes
• There is a great variation among the property values for different
biomasses and their derived products. Some properties are directly
related to the biomass type (e.g., particle density and porosity), but
fuel preparation changes such characteristics as particle size and
shape
• The organic part of plants mainly consists of carbon, hydrogen, and
oxygen, with a minor portion of nitrogen, sulfur, and phosphorus,
which are vital for the plant’s metabolism and physiology.
• Table 2.2 shows an overview of the elements composing biomass and
their major effects in the bioenergy conversion chain.
• Figure 2.1 shows a so-called “Van Krevelen” diagram that presents the
atomic H/C ratio on the vertical axis and the O/C ratio on the horizontal
axis.
• The diagram maps different coal types, with the anthracites near the origin
and young biomass (constituents) in the upper right corner.
• Biomass is characterized by a relatively large content of oxygen, which
decreases with aging of the fuel. Coal and biomass have similar ancestors,
and fossil fuels in general could be marked as very old biomass.
• The process of coalification starts when plant matter dies and soil covers it;
then long-term (simultaneous) effects of heat, pressure, and microbial
action cause the material to be deprived from oxygen and hydrogen so that
it is gradually enriched in carbon.
• This process first forms peat, subsequently lignites and
subbituminous coals, then bituminous coals, and finally anthracites,
the most carbon-rich end stage.
• During this coalification process, the heating value of the organic
material gradually increases.
Proximate and Ultimate Analysis of fuels
• Proximate analysis:
• It decide the adoption of fuel/coal and designing handling system
• Constituents: Moisture, Volatile matter (VM), Ash, Fixed carbon (FC)
• Moisture: (Inherent and Surface)
• Ash contains Silica, Alumina, Iron oxide, Magnesium, etc.
• Klinker formation at higher temp for ash (fusion temp.)

Ultimate analysis: (Elemental analysis)

• Decide the heating value
• Constituents: Carbon, hydrogen, Oxygen, Sulfur, Nitrogen, and ash
• (play role in selection of fuel is better)
• Table 2.3 presents an overview of fuels from young biomass to highly
coalified anthracite based on their proximate analysis, which
determines the percentages of moisture, volatile matter (VM), fixed
carbon (FC), and ash, and ultimate analysis (or elemental analysis),
which determines the main elemental composition (C, H, O, N).
The natural biomass composition is impacted by the following main
aspects:
1. Biomass type, species, or specific plant part; growth characteristics;
uptake of certain compounds from the environment (air/water/soil); and
their transport to and deposition in dedicated parts of the plant.
2. External conditions of biomass growth with particular roles of:
• a. Sunlight
• b. Climate, including seasonal fluctuations
• c. Soil type
• d. Water availability
• e. pH
• f. Nutrient availability and fertilization regime
• g. Pesticide dosing regime
• h. Location (including distance from polluting sites as cities, highways, etc.)
3. Age, harvesting season, harvesting collection technology, pickup of
extraneous
• material (e.g., dust, dirt, soil), transport, handling, and storage
4. Blending strategies
• Biomass in general is composed of mainly organic matter but in
conjunction with a smaller fraction of inorganic compounds containing a
variety of intimately associated phases or minerals with different origins.
• These have formed by natural processes, both authigenic (formed in
biomass) and detrital (formed outside biomass but fixed in/on biomass),
as well as by anthropogenic (formed in or outside biomass and fixed
in/on biomass) processes.
• In this respect, one can discriminate between presyngenesis, syngenesis,
epigenesis, and postepigenesis (Figure 2.2).
The phase composition can be summarized as
follows:
1. Organic matter
a. Solid, noncrystalline—structural constituents, e.g., (hemi)cellulose, lignin, and extractives
b. Solid, crystalline—organic (combined with inorganic) minerals such as Ca–Mg–K–Na
oxalates
2. Inorganic matter
a. Solid, crystalline—minerals, e.g., consisting of phosphates, carbonates, silicates, chlorides,
sulfates, oxyhydroxides, and nitrates
b. Solid, semicrystalline—poorly crystallized mineraloids of certain silicates, phosphates,
hydroxides, etc.
c. Solid, amorphous—phases that are formed as glasses, silicates, etc.

3. Fluid matter—fluid, liquid, and gas (moisture, gas, and gas/liquid inclusions associated with
both organic and inorganic matter)
MAIN STRUCTURAL ORGANIC CONSTITUENTS
• the main structural cell wall components are always
cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin.
Other major bio-organic polymer structures that are found in nature
are:
starch (e.g., in maize, banana, etc.) and chitosan (e.g., shrimp shells).
MINOR ORGANIC CONSTITUENTS
• Such as oils, fats (lipids), proteins, starch, and sugars, as well as a
spectrum of organic extractives. These compounds are widely used as
(ingredients of ) food and animal feed (e.g., olive or sunflower oil,
animal fats, and sucrose from sugarcane) but also as lubricants,
rubbers, pharmaceuticals (e.g., antibiotics and vitamins synthesis),
dyes, and even cosmetics. They are also used as feed stocks for many
first-generation biofuels based on vegetable oils.