Gasification of Phycoremediation Algal Biomass

Abstract

Microalgae have been utilized in wastewater treatment strategies in various contexts. Uncontrolled algal species are a cheap and effective remediation strategy. This study investigates the thermochemical potential of wastewater treatment algae (phycoremediation) as a means to produce renewable fuel streams and bio-products. Three gasification temperature levels were investigated in an auger gasification platform: 760, 860, and 960 °C. Temperature increases resulted in corresponding increases in CO and H2 concentrations in the producer gas from 12.8% and 4.7% at 760 °C to 16.9% and 11.4% at 960 °C, respectively. Condensable yields ranged between 15.0% and 16.6%, whereas char yields fell between 46.0% and 51.0%. The high ash content (40% on a dry basis) was the main cause of the elevated char yields. On the other hand, the relatively high yields of condensables and a high carbon concentration in the char were attributed to the low conversion efficiency in this gasification platform. Combustion kinetics of the raw algae, in a thermogravimetric analyzer, showed three consecutive stages of weight loss: drying, devolatilization, and char oxidation. Increasing the algae gasification temperature led to increases in the temperature of peak char oxidation. Future studies will further investigate improvements to the performance of auger gasification.

Iron/Carbon Composites for Cr(VI) Removal Prepared from Harmful Algal Bloom Biomass via Metal Bioaccumulation or Biosorption

“…All samples share three weight loss regions, attributed to removal of physically adsorbed moisture (25–120 °C), release of volatile components from both carbon and iron precursors (200–350 °C), and lignin combustion (420–500 °C) . A white gray ash (4.8 wt %) was recovered from the AC control precursor (i.e., dry algal powder), which is believed to consist of inorganic oxides . All iron-loaded samples, however, generate more ash that has a brown/red color.…”

“…47 A white gray ash (4.8 wt %) was recovered from the AC control precursor (i.e., dry algal powder), which is believed to consist of inorganic oxides. 48 All iron-loaded samples, however, generate more ash that has a brown/red color. Additional ash (6.6−11.4 wt %) in 2a).…”

Nanostructured nickel–cobalt alloy/rGO-SWCNT thin film as an efficient electrocatalyst for hydrogen evolution reactions

“…1,2 Due to this, the rapidly developing hydrogen energy techniques including hydrogen generation, hydrogen reserve and hydrogen utilization can be considered as an ideal route to solve environmental pollution and energy shortage. [3][4][5][6][7] Hydrogen generation involves water-gas shift reaction, [8][9][10][11] methanol steam reforming, [12][13][14][15][16] biomass gasification, [17][18][19][20] photocatalytic water splitting [21][22][23][24][25] and electro-catalytic water splitting. [26][27][28][29] Among these techniques, electro-catalytic water splitting is widely viewed as an efficient and viable strategy for green hydrogen production.…”