Bio Mass

Biomass is a general term for living material –

plants,
animals,
fungi,
bacteria.

Earth’s biomass represents an enormous store of energy.

It has been estimated that just one eighth of the total biomass
produced annually would provide all of humanity’s current demand
for energy.

Since biomass can be re-grown, it is potentially a renewable

resource.

The energy obtained from biomass is known as biomass energy.

Animals feed on plants and plants grow through photosynthesis process using solar
energy.

Thus, photosynthesis process is primarily responsible for generation of biomass energy.

A small portion of the solar radiation is captured and stored in the plants during
photosynthesis process.

Therefore, it is an indirect form of solar energy.

The average efficiency of photosynthetic conversion of solar energy into biomass energy
is estimated to be 0.5–1.0 per cent.
 Various Forms of Biomass
1. Fuel Wood
2. Charcoal is a clean (smokeless), dry, solid fuel of black color. It has 75–80 per
cent carbon content and has energy density of about 30 MJ/kg.
It is obtained by carbonization process of woody biomass to achieve higher
energy density per unit mass, thus making it more economical to transport.
It can be used as fuel in domestic environment as it burns without smoke.

3. Fuel Pellets and Briquettes Crop residues such as straw, rice husk etc. and
waste wood are pressed to form lumps, known as fuel pellets or briquettes and
used as solid fuel.
The purpose is to reduce moisture content and increase the energy density of
biomass making it more feasible for long distance transportation.
4. Bio-diesel
Some vegetable oils, edible as well as non-edible can be used (after some
chemical processing) in pure form or its blend with petroleum diesel as
fuel in a compression– ignition (diesel) engine.
Bio-diesel is simple to use, biodegradable, nontoxic, and essentially free of
sulfur and aromatics.
 Various Forms of Biomass
5. Bio-ethanol

Ethanol (C2H5OH) is a colorless liquid biofuel.

Its boiling point is 78 °C and energy density is 26.9 MJ/kg.

It can be derived from wet biomass containing sugars(e.g. sugarcane, sugar beet,
sweet sorghum, etc.), starches (grains, tubers such as potato, cassava, etc.) or
cellulose (woody matter).

Main constituents of woody matter are: lignin (fibrous part) and cellulose (juicy part).

Ethanol is largely produced from sugar cane (from maize in USA due to surplus
production).
 Various Forms of Biomass
6. Biogas
It is the gaseous fuel obtained from biomass (organic waste from plants, animals
and humans) by means of anaerobic digestion or fermentation.
The anaerobic digestion process can be profitably applied to any wet organic
matters.
Anaerobes are microorganisms or bacteria found to live and grow in organic matter
at the temperature of less than 60° in presence of moisture but in the absence of air
or oxygen.
The anaerobic organism consumes oxygen which it obtains from decomposition of
organic matters.
Decomposition of the organic matters by anaerobic microorganism is called
digestion or fermentation.
The biogas is liberated from the organic matters during digestion or fermentation.
The biogas produced by digestion contains
(i) methane gas (CH4) 65–75%,
(ii) carbon dioxide gas (CO2) 25–35% and
(iii) small traces of nitrogen, ammonia, hydrogen sulphide and other gases.
The biogas has energy density of about 23 MJ/m3.
It can be used for cooking, lighting, heating and operating small IC engines.
 Various Forms of Biomass
7 Producer gas

It is obtained by gasification of solid fuels.

In this, woody matter (crop residue, wood chips, rice husk, coconut shell and
sugarcane residue) is converted into producer gas by thermochemical method
which is infact the partial combustion and reduction operation of biomass.

The producer gas has 19% carbon monoxide, 18% hydrogen, 1% methane, 11%
carbon dioxide and the rest remaining nitrogen.

The producer gas is used for IC engines for running pumps, motor vehicles, heating
and generation of steam in a small-scale power plant.
 MSW Incineration Plant

Municipal solid waste is the solid waste generated by households, commercial and
institutional operations and some industries.

Disposal of MSW is a major problem in big cities where large quantities of waste is to be
disposed of, far away from the city centers.

The emerging solution is to use this waste biomass as an energy resource in a waste-to-
energy conversion plant near city center.

The energy thus generated is used within city itself and only a relatively small residue of
used biomass (ash etc.) is disposed away in landfills.

Through incineration or gasification, electrical energy may be generated along with

thermal energy for process heat.
MSW Incineration Plant
 Biomass gasification

The word gasification (or thermal gasification) implies converting solid fuel into a
gaseous fuel by thermo-chemical method without leaving any solid carbonaceous
residue.

Gasification is an established technology, the first commercial application of which dates

back to 1830.

During World War II, biomass gasification system appeared all over the world to power
vehicles to keep basic transport system running.

Gasifier is the equipment that converts biomass into producer gas.

Most common raw materials are: wood chips and other wastes from wood industry,
coconut shells, straw etc.

Biomass that has high ash content such as rice husk etc. can also be handled though
with some difficulty.
 Biomass gasification

Gasification involves partial combustion (oxidation in restricted quantity of air/oxidant)

and reduction operations of biomass.
Gasifiers are broadly classified into:
(i) fixed bed gasifier and (ii) fluidized bed gasifier.

The fixed bed gasifiers are further classified as:

(a) downdraft,
(b) updraft and
(c) cross draft types, depending upon the direction of airflow.
Downdraft Type

Downdraft type is best suited for a variety of

biomass.

Its design forces the raw products to pass

through a high temperature zone so that most of
the unburnt pyrolysis products (especially tars)
can be cracked into gaseous hydrocarbons, thus
producing a relatively clean gas.
Updraft Type

Updraft type gasifier (also called counter flow gasifier)

is the simplest as well as first type of gasifier
developed.

This type of gasifier is easy to build and operate.

The air enters below the combustion zone and the gas
is drawn off at the top.

The updraft gasifier achieves highest efficiency as the

hot gas passes through the fuel bed and then leaves
the gasifier at low temperature.

The gas produced has practically no ash but contains

tar and water vapor because of passing of gas through
unburnt fuel.

Hence updraft gasifier is suitable for tar free feedstock

(fuels like charcoal, etc.).
Crossdraft Type

Crossdraft type gasifier is shown in Fig.

Air enters the gasifier through a water cooled

nozzle mounted on one side of the firebox.

It operates at a very high temperature and

confines its combustion and reduction zone near
the air nozzle.

Because of short path length for gasification

reactions, this type of gas producer responds
most rapidly for change in gas production.

The high exit temperature of the gas and low

CO2 reduction results in poor quality of gas and
low efficiency.

Therefore, this type of gasifier is not in common

use.
Fluidized Bed Type

A fluidized bed gasifier takes the advantage of

excellent mixing characteristics and high reaction
rates of gas-solid mixture.

A simple fluidized bed gasifier is a chamber with

a bed of inert particles such as sand or lime
stone supported by distributor plate as shown in
Fig.

Pressurized air is passed through distributor

plate.

The velocity of the air is progressively increased

till the upward drag of air on bed particles
supports the entire weight of the bed.

The bed is then said to be incipiently fluidized,

and it exhibits fluid like properties above this
velocity, called minimum fluidization velocity. This
moving mass of solid is called a fluidized bed.
Biogas – Digester

Aerobic and Anaerobic

The literary meaning of aerobic is any process taking place in the presence of
air, while anaerobic means any process taking place in the absence of air or
oxygen.

It is the anaerobic process or digestion in biomass slurry which helps in

converting biomass into biogas.
The anaerobic digestion or fermentation in biomass slurry is started by a
microorganism called anaerobe.
The anaerobe microorganism grows on biomass at a temperature lower than
65°C in the presence of moisture but in the absence of air or oxygen.

The microorganism anaerobe consumes oxygen for survival and growth which
is obtained from the digestion or fermentation of the wet organic matter.

During anaerobic digestion of wet biomass slurry, the biogas is liberated.

Anaerobic bacteria are also called methane formers.
The anaerobic digester or plant is shown in Figure Feed consists of organic material
slurry prepared in mixing tank.

Feed supply per day to the digester is called the loading rate.
Continuous type biogas plant
Biomass slurry is fed daily into the digester.

This is made possible by the removal of digested slurry through an outlet so that the
digester can have space to intake fresh biomass slurry.

The biogas produced is either stored in the digester or removed to be stored in a gas
holder.
Continuous type biogas plant
The plant operates continuously and it is stopped only for the removal of sludge.

The layer of scum at the top of the biomass slurry is periodically broken with the help of
the stirrer as shown in Figure The stirring also helps in better mixing of biomass slurry to
speed up the digestion process.

This type of plant is most suitable for individual house owners as the daily wastage can
meet the biomass feed requirement of the digester.
Floating drum type biogas plant

The plant consists of an inverted metallic drum to function as gas holder and an
underground digester constructed from masonry with a partition wall as shown in Figure

The digester chamber is provided with a partition wall at the centre so that
optimum conditions for growth of acid forming bacteria and methane forming
bacteria can be provided in the partitioned portions as biomass slurry should be
acidic and basic for acid forming and methane forming bacteria, respectively.
The pipe arrangements are provided to the digester for the supply of fresh feed
of biomass slurry and the removal of digested slurry. As the digester has floating
gas holder, the pressure inside the digester remains constant. There is no risk of
explosion due to prevailing low pressure of gas.
Fixed dome type biogas plant

It has constant volume but varying pressure inside the digester as it has no movable
type gas holder but a fixed dome at the upper portion of the digester as shown in Figure

The biomass and water are mixed into slurry in inlet mixing tank, which is fed into the
digester through the inlet pipe. A stirrer is provided in the digester tank to mix the slurry
inside the digester, which also helps in mixing of scum floating on the slurry.
Fixed dome type biogas plant

The generated biogas accumulates in the fixed dome of the digester and it is taken out
by an outlet pipe.
The residual digested slurry is taken out from an opening in the digester.
In the modified fixed dome type biogas plant, a displacement tank is also provided which
is connected to the digester. As the pressure of gas in the fixed dome increases, the
level of the slurry inside the digester goes down and it forces the slurry to rise in the
displacement tank.
This arrangement helps in maintaining a constant pressure inside the digester about 1 m
of water column and the removal of digested slurry from the displacement tank.