Worldwide, there is a general increase in the demand for renewable energy sources, which is often encouraged by legislative actions. One of the main sectors affected by this trend is transportation: according to the revised Renewable Energy Directive 2018/2001/EU, a minimum of 14% of fuel for transport purposes must be biofuel produced from renewable sources by 2030. The use of biomasses for energy purposes is often criticised because of the combination of soil shortage and increasing world population: the cultivation of specific energy crops could subtract high-quality agricultural land to food crops. A possible solution could be to use contaminated land areas to grow energy crops; moreover, choosing the appropriate crops, there could be partial remediation of these contaminated lands through phytoremediation, leading to a win-win situation. While in principle contaminated biomass from crops grown on contaminated lands can be used to produce biofuels, the presence of potentially toxic compounds (such as heavy metals) poses some technical difficulties in biofuel production, especially for fermentation. A reliable technique for the treatment of contaminated biomasses is pyrolysis, a thermochemical process that, given appropriate operative conditions, can concentrate and stabilize heavy metals in the solid product (char) while obtaining a combustible liquid phase (bio-oil) free from contaminants. Framed into CERESiS European project, a fast pyrolysis plant has been developed and designed aiming to produce bio-oil from heavy metals contaminated biomasses. The plant is based on an auger reactor and includes a complex condensation section that can achieve a fractional condensation of bio-oil. The fast pyrolysis plant will be involved in future researches to investigate the speciation of heavy metals and their distribution in the pyrolysis products under different operative conditions, other than heavy metals effect on pyrolysis products properties. The final aim is to define the best operational parameters needed for the production of a clean, good-quality bio-oil.
CONTAMINATED BIOMASSES TO BIOFUEL
R Ragucci;P Giudicianni
2021
Abstract
Worldwide, there is a general increase in the demand for renewable energy sources, which is often encouraged by legislative actions. One of the main sectors affected by this trend is transportation: according to the revised Renewable Energy Directive 2018/2001/EU, a minimum of 14% of fuel for transport purposes must be biofuel produced from renewable sources by 2030. The use of biomasses for energy purposes is often criticised because of the combination of soil shortage and increasing world population: the cultivation of specific energy crops could subtract high-quality agricultural land to food crops. A possible solution could be to use contaminated land areas to grow energy crops; moreover, choosing the appropriate crops, there could be partial remediation of these contaminated lands through phytoremediation, leading to a win-win situation. While in principle contaminated biomass from crops grown on contaminated lands can be used to produce biofuels, the presence of potentially toxic compounds (such as heavy metals) poses some technical difficulties in biofuel production, especially for fermentation. A reliable technique for the treatment of contaminated biomasses is pyrolysis, a thermochemical process that, given appropriate operative conditions, can concentrate and stabilize heavy metals in the solid product (char) while obtaining a combustible liquid phase (bio-oil) free from contaminants. Framed into CERESiS European project, a fast pyrolysis plant has been developed and designed aiming to produce bio-oil from heavy metals contaminated biomasses. The plant is based on an auger reactor and includes a complex condensation section that can achieve a fractional condensation of bio-oil. The fast pyrolysis plant will be involved in future researches to investigate the speciation of heavy metals and their distribution in the pyrolysis products under different operative conditions, other than heavy metals effect on pyrolysis products properties. The final aim is to define the best operational parameters needed for the production of a clean, good-quality bio-oil.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
