Torrefaction Of Biomass
With the world energy demand projected to rise by about 40 from now to 2020 it is possible that oil production will not increase accordingly. Natural gas which covers almost 25 of the world’s energy demand today may overtake oil as the most important energy source by 2025. This trend is also supported by environmental concerns such as global warming which have resulted in calls for increased use of natural gas. Natural gas gives off only one half as much carbon dioxide CO2 per unit of energy produced as does coal and 25 less than oil. Worldwide supplies of natural gas are reasonably widespread and should last for 60 years at current rates of production. Eventually fossil fuel reserves will dwindle. Looking beyond the era of natural gas coal may become increasingly used but this requires CO2 sequestration. Preferably the world should move towards more sustainable energy sources such as wind energy solar energy and energy from biomass.
Annually photosynthesis stores 58 times more energy in biomass than man currently consumes from all sources. Biomass currently the fourth largest energy source in the world could therefore in principle become the main energy source. However many challenges remain to be solved before biomass can be used on a much larger scale as a sustainable energy source. Some of these challenges are related to biomass production e.g. land management competition with food production etc. but challenges also exist in the handling of biomass as a fuel. The relatively low energy density of biomass in combination with its high moisture content makes transport of biomass from production sites to power stations or future biorefineries costly. Biomass is very fibrous and tough. The production of very small biomass fuel particles is therefore a rather difficult and energy consuming task which complicates a number of applications in gasification and combustion.
The research on torrefaction carried out in collaboration between the Technical University of Eindhoven TU/e and the Energy research Centre of the Netherlands ECN which is presented in this report presents solutions to some of these challenges. Such a contribution may extend the lifetime of our fossil fuels resources and alleviate global warming problems. Although the research was focussed on the application of torrefaction for entrainedflow gasification the project team recognises that the outcomes can also be valuable for other applications e.g. as a pretreatment technology in the cofiring of biomass in power stations the production of densified biomass fuels e.g. pellets and generally biomass fuel production chains.
About the writer: Author in Ukrainian Geographic since 2005
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