Krishnendu Kundu

Thermochemical Conversion of Biomass to Bioenergy: A Review

Increasing global energy demand is being substantially contributed by the bioenergy sector. For the rural communities, bioenergy provides opportunities for social and economic development by improving the waste and other resource management. The contribution of bioenergy proves to be significant in terms of maintaining social, economic as well as environmental health, ensuring energy security. Biomass, when converted to bioenergy, may undergo different suitable processes. Thermochemical conversions are no exception. The process technologies include combustion, torrefaction, pyrolysis, and gasification. All these processes having the common backbone of thermal decomposition are optimized by different factors and yield specific products of different states such as solid, liquid, and gases. The characteristics of generic types of reactors used to carry out such processes are described with their special features, advantages, and disadvantages. Though researches have called for three types of possible biomass for conversion such as lipid, sugar/starch, and lignocellulose in the present chapter, conversion of lignocellulosic biomass feedstock is focused. It has been discussed how the variations in composition of biomass at optimized process flow differ the quality and quantity of potential product yields.

Optimization of biodiesel production from grape seed oil using Taguchi's orthogonal array

ABSTRACT The physicochemical properties of biodiesel are very similar to those of petroleum diesel fuel. The main focus of this study is the production of the biodiesel from grape seed oil. This study shows the optimization of the operation parameters, specifically regarding catalyst concentration, the reaction time, the molar ratio (i.e., methanol-to-oil ratio), and the reaction temperature for the production of biodiesel. The effect of operation factors on performance parameters is analyzed using Taguchi’s orthogonal array. The results depict that 96.90% was the optimum biodiesel yield at a molar ratio 6:1 with a catalyst concentration of 1% by weight and a reaction time of 60 min at 60°C and 4.34 cSt was the optimum biodiesel viscosity at a molar ratio of 6:1 with a catalyst concentration of 0.5% by weight and a reaction time of 75 min at 45°C. The most effective parameter was observed to be catalyst concentration, which conferred 76.39%, and 53.74% of the total influence on the biodiesel yield (Y1) and viscosity (Y2), respectively.

Biodiesel production using waste cooking oil: a waste to energy conversion strategy

In this study, biodiesel was produced using waste cooking oil that was discarded as a waste in the environment. The properties of the feedstock were determined using standard ASTM methods. The transesterification process was implemented to extract the biodiesel, and this process was optimized and standardized by selecting three different parameters: molar ratio (methanol:oil), catalyst concentration (KOH) and reaction temperature. The physicochemical properties of the biodiesel so produced were tested and analyzed using gas chromatography. Biodiesel and diesel were mixed in different volumetric ratios, and the exhaust emission characteristics of the blends were determined by testing the blends on a variable compression ratio engine. The study concluded that waste cooking oil has a great potential for waste to energy process. The highest yield of 93.8% was obtained by optimizing the process. Emission characteristics of CO for B50 blend showed a downward trend while NOx emission was found to be greater for blending ratios above 10%. B10 showed the best results pertaining to lower NOx and CO emissions.