Residues pre-treatment for a better performance as feedstock in advanced thermal treatments under a circular bioeconomy scenario

Alabdrabalameer, Hassan Abdullah

Abstract

Defluidisation as a result of reactor bed agglomeration is a global challenge associated with the gasification of lignocellulosic biomass waste, specifically its high inorganic content. This problem occurred as a result of interaction between ash from biomass and Silica bed material within the bed reactor, which formed eutectics that blocked the biomass from interacting with the main gas input, causing the processing to be interrupted. The use of conventional water leaching has been scrutinised for the removal of inorganic constituents from barley straw, a highly abundant waste feedstock with a high ash content. Conventional leaching processes use a significant amount of energy and time, which may result in an increase in the cost of pre-treatment (leaching). Novel approaches such as ultrasound and microwave have been investigated and studied in order to get a better insight of how to increase the performance of the leaching technique. A novel and innovative approach for leaching by ultrasonic probe can save 240-fold and 488-fold of the time and energy consumption, respectively comparing to the conventional leaching. Leaching wood and barley straw with an ultrasonic probe showed a significant ash reduction and this novel leaching method was successful without disturbing the physical and structure of the biomass sample. After leaching the barley straw, the melting temperature raised to more than 1100oC, an increase by 480oC, effectively preventing ash from melting within the bed material during energy generation in a fluidized bed reactor. Furthermore, there was a 31-37 % improvement in the quality of the gasification gas after leaching, as measured in a continuous fluidized bed reactor.

Citation

Alabdrabalameer, H. A. (2022). Residues pre-treatment for a better performance as feedstock in advanced thermal treatments under a circular bioeconomy scenario. (Thesis). University of Hull. https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/4909028

• Thesis Type: Thesis
• Deposit Date: Nov 5, 2024
• Publicly Available Date: Dec 15, 2027
• Keywords: Engineering
• Public URL: https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/4909028
• Award Date: Dec 14, 2022