Session: 09-05-01: Sustainable Energy Systems for Heating and Cooling I

Paper Number: 164006

Bio-Oil and Bio-Crude Gasification for Syngas Production: Energy, Exergy and Environmental Analyses 

Global energy demand has been growing for several years due to rapid industrialization and rising living standards worldwide. Global energy consumption is projected to increase by approximately 32.1% between 2020 and 2050 . Despite being the most widely used energy source, fossil fuel reserves have declined. Furthermore, their intensive use has caused serious problems associated with global warming by emitting pollutants and greenhouse gases such as CO₂ . As a result, there has been an increasing shift towards renewable energy sources, characterized by a gradual reduction in energy production from fossil fuels. Biomass transformation can play a crucial role in syngas and synthetic fuel production for the chemical industry. The fast pyrolysis conversion route is a thermal process that uses solid biomass to produce bio-oil, bio-char, and non-condensable gases with different compositions and potential uses. Bio-crude, a combination of bio-oil and bio-char, could enhance the energy properties for syngas production through gasification. This study developed a simulation in Aspen plus® following the Ranzi kinetic mechanism for biomass pyrolysis to estimate the yield and composition of bio-oil, bio-char, and non-condensable gases for rice husk and palm empty fruit bunch. Two gasification scenarios for bio-oil and bio-crude (a bio-oil + biochar blend) using air and steam as gasification agents enabled comparing these biomasses to an energy and exergy analysis. In addition, this work implemented the waste reduction algorithm to determine the potential environmental impacts of the simulated processes. Simulation gasification results reveal that bio-oil from empty fruit bunches produced higher energy and exergy efficiencies than the ones for rice husks under the same conditions when air was the gasification agent. The energy efficiency values for bio-crude gasification were 50.8% and 44.3 % for empty fruit bunches using air and steam as gasification agents, respectively. These efficiencies were 41.1% and 37.7% for bio-crude from rice husk. The highest potential environmental impact (PEI) reached 86.5 and 61.2 PEI h^-1 for bio-oil from rice husk with air and steam as gasification agents, suggesting that the high ash content of this biomass could affect this indicator. Likewise, these values reached 41.62 and 28.88 PEI h^-1 for bio-crude from rice husk. Finally, PEI values were minimal for scenarios using empty fruit bunches.

The findings highlight that bio-oil and bio-crude gasification could be more efficient and environmentally less damaging than direct biomass gasification routes. These results can guide future developments of biorefineries to optimize renewable energy production and minimize environmental impacts.

Presenting Author: Juan Fajardo Universidad Tecnológica De Bolívar

Presenting Author Biography: Mechanical Engineer
Master in Mechanical Engineering
Doctor of Technical Sciences

Authors:

Ana Buelvas Universidad del Norte
Daniel A. Quintero - Coronel GITYD Research Unit Universidad Francisco de Paula Santander
Juan Fajardo Universidad Tecnológica De Bolívar
Deibys Barreto Universidad Tecnológica de Bolívar
Antonio Bula Universidad del Norte
Arturo González - Quiroga Universidad del Norte