High energy density fuels derived from Mallee Biomass: fuel properties and implications

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Hanisom Abdullah
Format: Thesis
Language:English
Published: 2010
Subjects:
Online Access:https://ir.upsi.edu.my/detailsg.php?det=658
Abstract Abstract here
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spelling upsi-6582020-02-27 High energy density fuels derived from Mallee Biomass: fuel properties and implications 2010 Hanisom Abdullah TP Chemical technology Mallee Biomass is considered to be a second-generation renewable feedstock in Australia and will play an important role in bioenergy development in Australia. Its production is of large-scale, low cost, small carbon footprint and high energy efficiency. However, biomass as a direct fuel is widely dispersed, bulky, fibrous and of high moisture content and low energy density. High logistic cost, poor grindability and mismatch of fuel property with coal are some of the key issues that impede biomass utilisation for power generation. Therefore, innovations are in urgent need to improve biomass volumetric energy densification, grindability and good fuel matching if co-fired with coal. Biomass pyrolysis is a flexible and low-cost approach that can be deployed for this purpose. Via pyrolysis, the bulky biomass can be converted to biomass-derived high-energy-density fuels such as biochar and/or biooil. So far there has been a lack of fundamental understanding of mallee biomass pyrolysis and properties of the fuel products. The series of study in this PhD thesis aims to investigate the production of such highenergy- density fuels obtained from mallee pyrolysis and to obtain some new knowledge on properties of the resultant fuels and their implications to practical applications. Particularly, the research has been designed and carried out to use pyrolysis as a pretreatment technology for the production of biochar, bio-oil and bioslurry fuels. The main outcomes of this study are summarised as follows. Firstly, biochars were produced from the pyrolysis of centimetre-sized particles of mallee wood at 300-500C using a fixed-bed reactor under slow-heating conditions. The data show that at pyrolysis temperatures>320C, biochar as a fuel has similar fuel H/C and OIC ratios compared to Collie coal which is the only coal being mined in WA. Converting biomass to biochar leads to a substantial increase in fuel mass energy density from -10 GJ/tonne of green biomass to -28 GJ/tonne of biochars prepared from pyrolysis at 320C, in comparison to 26 GJ/tonne for Collie coal. However, there is little improvement in fuel volumetric energy density, which is still around 7-9 GJ/m3 in comparison to 17 GJ/m3 of Collie coal. Biochars are still bulky and grinding is required for volumetric energy densification. Biochar grindability experiments have shown that the fuel grindability increases drastically even at pyrolysis temperature as low as 300C. Further increase in pyrolysis temperature to 500C leads to only small increase in biochar grindability. Under the grinding conditions, a significant size reduction (34-66 % cumulative volumetric size 2010 thesis https://ir.upsi.edu.my/detailsg.php?det=658 https://ir.upsi.edu.my/detailsg.php?det=658 text eng N/A openAccess Doctoral Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris Fakulti Sains dan Matematik N/A
spellingShingle TP Chemical technology
Hanisom Abdullah
High energy density fuels derived from Mallee Biomass: fuel properties and implications
thesis_level PhD
title High energy density fuels derived from Mallee Biomass: fuel properties and implications
title_full High energy density fuels derived from Mallee Biomass: fuel properties and implications
title_fullStr High energy density fuels derived from Mallee Biomass: fuel properties and implications
title_full_unstemmed High energy density fuels derived from Mallee Biomass: fuel properties and implications
title_short High energy density fuels derived from Mallee Biomass: fuel properties and implications
title_sort high energy density fuels derived from mallee biomass fuel properties and implications
topic TP Chemical technology
url https://ir.upsi.edu.my/detailsg.php?det=658
work_keys_str_mv AT hanisomabdullah highenergydensityfuelsderivedfrommalleebiomassfuelpropertiesandimplications