Search results for "liquefaction"
showing 10 items of 28 documents
Biorefinery process for hydrothermal liquefaction of microalgae powered by a concentrating solar plant: A conceptual study
2017
Abstract A conceptual analysis of coupling a concentrating solar power plant with a biorefinery process consisting in the hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) of microalgae to biocrude was performed. The configuration of the CSP-HTL plant was designed to allow continuous operation considering 10 kT of microalgae processed each year using, for the first time, a ternary nitrate mixture as heat transfer fluid and storage medium in the temperature range of 340–410 °C. With adopted models, the capital and operating costs of the solar plant marginally affect the minimum fuel selling prize (MFSP) of biocrude that decreases with the size of the solar field and of the thermal storage system provided that…
Sewage sludge as cheap alternative to microalgae as feedstock of catalytic hydrothermal liquefaction processes
2019
Abstract Production of biocrude through hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) of sewage sludge (SS) and Chlorella vulgaris was investigated. NiMo/Al2O3 (KF 851), CoMo/Al2O3 (KF 1022) and activated carbon felt, tested as catalysts at 598 K for 30 min, did not change the biocrude yield but significantly improved its quality. Quantitative sulfur removal and lower oxygen content were found in biocrude when KF 851 and KF 1022 were used with C. vulgaris. The same catalysts decreased O/C and S/C ratio of the biocrude from SS. The highest HHV (38.19 MJ/kg) and H/C ratio (1.65) and the lowest O/C (0.11) of the biocrude from SS were obtained with the cheaper activated carbon felt. A new product phase, prob…
Modelling of Starch Gelatinisation and Liquefaction with the Enzyme Liquozyme
2011
In this paper the influence of the enzyme Liquozyme Supra concentration (0.4-1.2 kg/t dry substance DS) and gelatinisation time (3-11 min.) on the liquefied starch quality is investigated. The composition in sugars with different Degrees of Polymerisation (DP) as DP1 (glucose), DP2 (maltose), DP3 (maltotriose), DP4 (maltotetrose) and oligosaccharides with DP≥5 is analysed by using HPLC with RI detector. The products obtained have different DP, the main components being oligosaccharides with DP≥5, followed by small amount of DP3+DP4 and much smaller concentrations of DP1; no DP2 is produced by this enzyme. Two quality criteria: the percent of oligosaccharides with DP≥5 and the percent of DP1…
Segregated ice and liquefaction effects on compaction of fragipans
2004
The brittleness of fragipans is generally ascribed to the close-packing fabric arrangement acquired at the initial step of pedogenesis thanks to physical processes. However, there is an on-going debate over the agent causing soil densification. In this work, we tested the plausibility that ice segregation or liquefaction could have been the cause of the compaction of four fragipans. Two of them are located in nonseismic areas that have experienced periglacial conditions; one is from a strongly seismic area not affected by periglacial conditions, while the fourth site underwent moderate seismic activity and slight periglacial conditions. After disaggregation in the laboratory, soil specimens…
Design of a knowledge and management system for starch bioconversion
2011
Abstract In this paper a knowledge acquisition and management system (KAMS) which allows the collection, analysis, ordering and storage of informations generated at starch liquefaction was developed. KAMS was structured on three levels: PostgreSQL as a backend, D2RQ as middle tier and Seaside as frontend. The system was used to store knowledge about the liquefaction process with the goal to be used as a decision support system in chosing the condition for this operation. The tests had shown that the implemented KAMS provides support for: Distributed acquisition of the scientific data generated by the researchers; Structured data storage; Support for the generation and storage of knowledge o…
Conceptual study of the coupling of a biorefinery process for hydrothermal liquefaction of microalgae with a concentrating solar power plant
2017
A conceptual analysis of the coupling of a concentrating solar power plant with a chemical process for hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) of microalgae to biocrude was performed. The two plants were considered coupled by molten salt recirculation that granted energetic supply to the chemical process. Preliminary estimations have been done considering a solar field constituted by 3 linear parabolic solar collectors rows, each 200 m long, using a ternary molten salts mixture as heat transfer fluid, and a chemical plant sized to process 10 kT/y of microalgae. Under adopted conditions, we have estimated a minimum selling prize of the biocrude that is similar to that achieved in non-solar HTL proce…
Catalytic hydrothermal liquefaction of municipal sludge assisted by formic acid for the production of next-generation fuels
2021
Abstract Hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) of municipal sludge (MS) was studied at 325 °C and 30 min at 10 and 30% w/w concentration of MS using formic acid (FA) as a green liquid hydrogen donor both in the absence and in the presence of heterogeneous catalysts. Pellets of commercial NiMo/Al2O3, CoMo/Al2O3 and felt of activated carbon ACF 1600 were used as catalysts. The addition of FA at high MS loading allowed to increase the yields in BC from 41 to 62% and its H/C ratio from 1.80 to 2.01 leading to energy recovery (ER) higher than 100%.When heterogeneous catalysts were used together with FA, a marked improvement of BC yields and quality was obtained at 10% MS loading. This behavior was not…
Comparative Analysis of Quality Criteria for the Control of Liquefaction at the Obtaining of Starch-Based Hydrolysates
2012
Starch hydrolysates production converts starch to different kinds of products using enzymes in two steps, liquefaction and saccharification. This study investigated three types of analysis methods for the assessing and characterization of the liquefaction process: a rheological method (to measure yield stress), a chemical method (for the determination of Dextrose Equivalent DE) and a chromatographic method (HPLC to obtain the Degrees of Polymerization DPs). Potato starch with 13.5% dry substance was liquefied with the enzyme Liquozyme Supra for two hours in optimal conditions of pH and temperature. A comparative analysis between the methods to describe the liquefaction process was realise…
Hydrothermal liquefaction of wet biomass in batch reactors: Critical assessment of the role of operating parameters as a function of the nature of th…
2022
A scientometric analysis of articles published from 1986 to 2022 on batch hydrothermal liquefaction of microalgae, macroalgae, lignocellulosic biomass, sewage sludge and organic wastes in water was performed. We found that biocrude yield can be correlated with the kinetic severity factor (KSF) and scattering of experimental data increases in the supercritical region probably for uncertainty in the medium density affecting the kinetics of reactions involved in the process. The level of correlation and the yield increased when fast heating rates of the reactor, higher than 25 ◦C/min, were adopted. Energy recovery of biocrude obtained in fast heating experiments changes linearly with biocrude …
Economic sustainability of hydrothermal liquefaction of sewage sludge: From a conceptual analysis to a practical verification
2022
Introduction: Hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) could be a promising technology to produce biocrude from wet biomass. A conceptual analysis on the HTL of microalgae assisted by the use of solar heat demonstrated that even if microalgae are one of the most productive and investigated feedstock, their high cost hinders the economic sustainability of the process1. To overcome this issue a zero-cost wet waste biomass like sewage sludge (SS) could be adopted with comparable efficiency. Furthermore, the use of a proper catalyst, promoting the in-situ upgrading of the biocrude, still represents a big challenging opportunity for industrial HTL development. Aim: The outcomes of the conceptual analysis…