Potential of Briquette Produced with Torrefied Agroforestry Biomass to Generate Energy

Abstract

Agroforestry industries, such as sugar-alcohol, food, and logging, produce large quantities of waste, used to generate energy from direct burning. The application of other processes, such as torrefaction and briquetting, can increase the profits from the use of agro-industrial waste for energy generation. Briquetting is an alternative for using these wastes, allowing the compaction of the biomass, generating a biofuel with high energy density, and which is more homogeneous and easier to store and transport. The objective of this study was to evaluate the physical and chemical properties of four biomass types (wastes from sawed eucalypt and pine wood, coffee pruning wastes, and sugarcane bagasse) torrefied at 300 °C and compacted (briquetting) at pressures of 6.21, 8.27, and 10.34 MPa. The torrefaction increased the fixed carbon content, ash, and calorific value, and reduced the volatile material content and hygroscopic equilibrium moisture of the biomasses. The volatile material content was lower and the fixed carbon higher in the coffee pruning waste, the ash content higher in the sugarcane bagasse, and the calorific value higher in the pine and eucalypt wood. The briquetting and the torrefaction processes increased the biomass bulk density, and the useful calorific value, respectively, and consequently the energy density of the briquettes produced with torrefied raw material under high pressure. The mechanical properties of the briquettes produced with all materials increased with the compaction pressure. Torrefaction and briquetting increased the energy potential of the biomasses evaluated to produce energy from clean technology.

Torrefaction of Pine Using a Pilot-Scale Rotary Reactor: Experimentation, Kinetics, and Process Simulation Using Aspen Plus™

“…Various components, including condensable and non-condensable species added to the simulation, were identified from the pilot-scale experimental studies and the literature review provided in the supplementary material (Table S1) [10,13,14,[37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45]. The general input parameters used for the simulation are shown in Table 1.…”

“…The following supporting information can be downloaded at: https:// www.mdpi.com/article/10.3390/cleantechnol5020034/s1, Table S1: Condensable species recovered from the torrefaction of pinewood at various temperatures; Figure S1: (a-c References [10,12,15,30,[37][38][39][40][41][43][44][45]53] are cited in the supplementary materials.…”

An overview of torrefied bioresource briquettes: quality-influencing parameters, enhancement through torrefaction and applications

“…The O/C and H/C ratios reduce due to the reduction in oxygen and hydrogen contents relative to the carbon content (Akogun and Waheed, 2019 ; Nunes et al 2021 ) which is an indication of the maximized mass yield and energy of biomass (Chen et al 2015 ). Moreover, torrefaction also results in reducing volatiles and moisture content through heating (Portilho et al 2020 ; Chaves et al, 2021 ). It helps to ameliorate the limitations of raw feedstocks for briquette production and upscale their qualities (Nhuchhen et al 2014 ).…”

Optimization of Briquette Fuels by Co-Torrefaction of Residual Biomass and Plastic Waste Using Response Surface Methodology

“…Emadi [ 13 ] also reported that adding 6% LDPE to the mixed biochar increased the density of wheat and barley by 1.8% and 1.7%, respectively, while adding 10% LDPE to the mixed biochar increased the compressive strength of the wheat and barley briquettes by 280% and 253%, respectively, thus greatly improving their transport and storage efficiency. Portilho [ 22 ] evaluated the physicochemical properties of eucalyptus, pine, coffee grounds, and sugarcane bagasse after torrefaction and reported that torrefaction improved biochar fuel properties and pelletization at 10.34 MPa pressure, improved the mechanical properties, and increased the energy potential of the briquettes.…”