Abstract:In this study, the physical properties of briquettes produced from two different biomass feedstocks (sawdust and date palm trunk) and different plastic wastes, without using any external binding agent, were investigated. The biomass feedstocks were blended with different ratios of two waste from electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) plastics (halogen-free wire and printed circuit boards (PCBs)) and automotive shredder residues (ASR). The briquettes production is studied at different waste proportions (10-30%), pressures (22-67 MPa) and temperatures (room-130 • C). Physical properties as density and durability rating were measured, usually increasing with temperature. Palm trunk gave better results than sawdust in most cases, due to its moisture content and the extremely fine particles that are easily obtained.

Abstract:In this study, the physical properties of briquettes produced from two different biomass feedstocks (sawdust and date palm trunk) and different plastic wastes were investigated, without using any external binding agent. The biomass feedstocks were blended with different ratios of two WEEE plastics (halogen-free wire and print circuit boards (PCB)) and automotive shredder residues (ASR). The briquettes production is studied at different waste proportions (10-30%), pressures (22-67 MPa) and temperatures (room-130 ˚C). Physical properties as density and durability rating were measured, usually increasing with temperature. Palm trunk gave better results than sawdust in most cases, due to its moisture content and the extremely fine particles that are easily obtained.

In recent years, the use of solid biofuels (SBF) in combustion systems to generate industrial heat has become more common as they are renewable, potentially carbon neutral, and able to support an energy transition away from fossil fuels. However, despite the ready availability of waste biomass in Mexico and its suitability for incineration, the development of SBFs as a fuel source had lagged behind other countries. Promoting the use of SBF requires technical, sustainability, and economic feasibility studies to identify optimization opportunities for known systems. This article presents two technical, economic, and environmental feasibility studies of the use of SBF for process heat. Carbon dioxide emissions and economic feasibility were compared to fossil fuels to ascertain whether SBFs could be useful as a transition fuel in the medium term. Finally, some circumstances where the implementation of SBF in an industrial process could be feasible were identified. © 2021 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

In this paper a thermoeconomic and exergy analysis of a steam power plant located at Villa de Reyes, México is presented. This study is focused on the analysis on partial load of this plant. According to the steam power plant operation manual this plant is able to operate at 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% of the total load installed, and some design parameters are established for this operation loads. Nevertheless during this study it was observed that this parameters and operation loads conditions are not the most efficient from the energetic and exergetic point of view, and also, the values of the thermal parameters used for these operation loads were not the optimum. In this context the objective of this research was to design a model for the power plant simulation in order to determine the best design parameters and operation loads conditions for this particular facility. First of all the model was validated, with the information of the operation manual of the steam generator. Once the model was validated, it was achieved the thermal, exergetic and thermoeconomic analysis. As a result it was observed that the best operation load conditions are at 100%, 98.4%, 93.3% and 75.6%. Also some optimal values of air-gas relation, extraction pressure and drum pressure were found. It was observed that an energetic efficiency up to 35.5% and exergetic efficiency up to 29% may be achieved. Finally it was achieved the thermoeconomic analysis in order to determine the cost of the energetic and exergetic loses and identify the elements that produce the higher irreversibility.

In European countries seasonal thermal energy storage is an emergent task due to availability of solar energy in summer and thermal energy demand in winter. In this study the performance of an uninsulated buried storage tank is analyzed. Summer temperatures reached 45 °C in the storage tank and 22 °C in the soil, 1 m from the tank shell. Wintertime temperature of the storage tank dropped to 8 °C, near the freezing limit of the heat pump, and soil cooled down to 9 °C. While in wintertime heat transfer from earth to water was the limiting factor, a summertime temperature difference of more than 20 °C allowed enough energy transport to charge the soil storage system. An analytical model showed that more than 50% of the solar energy stored could be recovered by this application.