Kawnish Kirtania

Application of the distributed activation energy model to the kinetic study of pyrolysis of the fresh water algae Chlorococcum humicola

Apart from capturing carbon dioxide, fresh water algae can be used to produce biofuel. To assess the energy potential of Chlorococcum humicola, the algas pyrolytic behavior was studied at heating rates of 5-20K/min in a thermobalance. To model the weight loss characteristics, an algorithm was developed based on the distributed activation energy model and applied to experimental data to extract the kinetics of the decomposition process. When the kinetic parameters estimated by this method were applied to another set of experimental data which were not used to estimate the parameters, the model was capable of predicting the pyrolysis behavior, in the new set of data with a R(2) value of 0.999479. The slow weight loss, that took place at the end of the pyrolysis process, was also accounted for by the proposed algorithm which is capable of predicting the pyrolysis kinetics of C. humicola at different heating rates.

In situ synchrotron IR study relating temperature and heating rate to surface functional group changes in biomass

Three types of woody biomass were investigated under pyrolysis condition to observe the change in the surface functional groups by Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) technique with increasing temperature under two different (5 and 150°C/min) heating rates. The experiments were carried out in situ in the infrared microscopy beamline (IRM) of the Australian Synchrotron. The capability of the beamline made it possible to focus on single particles to obtain low noise measurements without mixing with KBr. At lower heating rate, the surface functional groups were completely removed by 550°C. In case of higher heating rate, a delay was observed in losing the functional groups. Even at a high temperature, significant number of functional groups was retained after the higher heating rate experiments. This implies that at considerably high heating rates typical of industrial reactors, more functional groups will remain on the surface.

Techno-economic assessment of catalytic gasification of biomass powders for methanol production

This study evaluated the techno-economic performance and potential benefits of methanol production through catalytic gasification of forest residues and lignin. The results showed that while catalytic gasification enables increased cold gas efficiencies and methanol yields compared to non-catalytic gasification, the additional pre-treatment energy and loss of electricity production result in small or no system efficiency improvements. The resulting required methanol selling prices (90-130€/MWh) are comparable with production costs for other biofuels. It is concluded that catalytic gasification of forest residues can be an attractive option as it provides operational advantages at production costs comparable to non-catalytic gasification. The addition of lignin would require lignin costs below 25€/MWh to be economically beneficial.

A two-degree-of-freedom dead time compensator for stable processes with long dead time

This paper presents a new simplified approach for the design of dead time compensators for processes with long dead time. The approach is based on a modified structure of the Smith predictor that allows to isolate the disturbance and set-point responses and thereby, providing two-degree-of-freedom control scheme. The proposed structure is easy to analyze and tune. Using an estimation of the dead time and process model of the plant, the proposed compensator has only two tuning parameters that determine the closed-loop performance and robustness. In order to evaluate the proposed compensator, a comparative analysis of robustness with the most recent algorithm proposed in literature is presented.

Catalytic hydrothermal liquefaction of biomass with K2CO3 for production of gasification feedstock

ABSTRACT The introduction of alkali catalyst during hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) improves conversion and allows the aqueous liquid product to be used as gasification feedstock. This study investigates the effect of reaction temperature (240–300°C), sawdust mass fraction (9.1–25%) and reaction time (0–60 min) during K2CO3-catalytic HTL of pine sawdust. The highest biomass conversion (75.2% carbon conversion and 83.0% mass conversion) was achieved at a reaction temperature of 270°C, 9.1% sawdust mass fraction and 30 min reaction time; meanwhile, the maximum aqueous product (AP) yield (69.0% carbon yield and 73.5% mass yield) was found at a reaction temperature of 300°C, 9.1% sawdust mass fraction and 60 min reaction time. Based on the main experimental results, models for carbon and mass yields of the products were developed according to face-centered central composite design using response surface methodology. Biomass conversion and product yields had a positive correlation with reaction temperature and reaction time, while they had an inverse correlation with sawdust mass fraction. Further investigation of the effects of biomass/water and biomass/K2CO3 ratios revealed that both high water loading and high K2CO3 loading enhanced conversion and AP yield.