Advances in Carbon Management Technologies

Biomass Utilization, Manufacturing, and Electricity Management, Volume 2

Subhas K. Sikdar, Frank Princiotta, Subhas K. Sikdar, Frank Princiotta

• Publisher: CRC Press
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9780367520564
• eBook ISBN: 9781000220353
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Education General
• Index: Biological Sciences

Volume 2 of Advances in Carbon Management Technologies has 21 chapters. It presents the introductory chapter again, for framing the challenges that confront the proposed solutions discussed in this volume. Section 4 presents various ways biomass and biomass wastes can be manipulated to provide a low-carbon footprint of the generation of power, heat and co-products, and of recovery and reuse of biomass wastes for beneficial purposes. Section 5 provides potential carbon management solutions in urban and manufacturing environments. This section also provides state-of the-art of battery technologies for the transportation sector. The chapters in section 6 deals with electricity and the grid, and how decarbonization can be practiced in the electricity sector.

The overall topic of advances in carbon management is too broad to be covered in a book of this size. It was not intended to cover every possible aspect that is relevant to the topic. Attempts were made, however, to highlight the most important issues of decarbonization from technological viewpoints. Over the years carbon intensity of products and processes has decreased, but the proportion of energy derived from fossil fuels has been stubornly stuck at about 80%. This has occurred despite very rapid development of renewable fuels, because at the same time the use of fossil fuels has also increased. Thus, the challenges are truly daunting. It is hoped that the technology choices provided here will show the myriad ways that solutions will evolve. While policy decisions are the driving forces for technology development, the book was not designed to cover policy solutions.

Section 1

Biomass Sector

CHAPTER 1

Biomass as a Source for Heat, Power and Chemicals

Kafarov, V* and Rosso-Cerón, AM

1. Introduction

Biofuels are those fuels obtained from biomass. Biomass is any type of organic matter that has its immediate origin in the biological process of living organisms, such as plants, or their metabolic waste (compost); the concept of biomass includes products of both vegetable and animal origins. This term has been accepted to name the group of energy products and materials of a renewable type that come from the organic raw material formed by biological route. Nowadays, different types of biomass can be differentiated.

Biofuels are alcohols, ethers, esters, and other chemical products that come from organic compounds of cellulosic base (biomass) obtained from wild plants or crops, which can replace, to a greater or lesser degree, the use of fuels destined for the production of electricity or for transportation.

The current biocomponents usually come from sugar, wheat, corn or oilseeds. The main objective of using these biofuels is to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases that overheat the earth’s surface and accelerate climate change. Unlike the use of fossil hydrocarbons, the use of biomass for energy consumption reduces CO₂ emissions to the atmosphere and the associated climate change impacts.

Biofuels of biological origin can replace part of the consumption of traditional fossil fuels, such as oil, gas and coal. This type of fuel is usually in liquid form and is used to drive the combustion engines of land transport. The most developed and used biofuels are bioethanol and biodiesel.

In this way, biofuels appear as an alternative source of energy that can be used if hydrocarbon prices rise too high or over a long-term horizon in which they run out. A second purpose in their use is that they help in reducing CO₂ emissions and curbing global warming. However, the energy crops of corn, sugarcane, sorghum or soybeans imply an alternative use to food and this might again generate a great controversy (Herguedas et al., 2012).

Depending on the nature of the biomass, energy use and the desired biofuel, several methods could be taken into consideration in order to obtain biofuels: Mechanical processes (chipping, crushing and compaction), thermochemical procedures (combustion, pyrolysis, and gasification), biotechnological techniques (micro-bacterial and enzymatic) and extractive methods to obtain liquid, solid and gaseous fuels.

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Carrera 27-Calle 9, Chemical Engineering Department, Industrial University of Santander, Bucaramanga, Colombia.

* Corresponding author: [email protected]

Table 1. Type of biomass and characteristics.

Type of biomass	Characteristics
Primary biomass	Organic matter formed directly from photosynthetic beings. This group includes plant biomass, including agricultural and forestry waste.
Secondary biomass	Produced by heterotrophic beings who use primary biomass in their nutrition. They constitute fecal matter or meat of the animals.
Tertiary biomass	Produced by the beings that feed on secondary biomass, for example remains and droppings of carnivorous animals that feed on herbivores.
Natural biomass	Produced by wild ecosystems; 40% of the biomass produced in the Earth comes from the oceans.
Residual biomass	Can be extracted from the waste of human activities, such as agriculture and forestry.
Energy crops	Refers to any crop with the purpose of providing the biomass to produce biofuels.

Source: (Herguedas et al., 2012).

Table 2. Obtaining biofuels processes.

	Techniques	Products	Applications
Mechanic	Chipping Trituration Compaction/pellets*	Firewood Chips* Briquettes* Sawdust	Heating Electricity
Thermochemical	Pyrolysis Gasification	Carbon Oils Gasogen	Heating Electricity Transport Chemical industry
Biological	Fermentation Anaerobic digestion	Ethanol Biogas	Heating Electricity Transport Chemical industry
Extractive	Physical-chemical extraction	Oils Esters Hydrocarbons	Transport Chemical industry

Source: (Herguedas et al., 2012). * Pellets

2. Classification of Biofuels According to Biomass Feedstocks

2.1 First-generation biofuels

First-generation biofuels are made from the sugars and vegetable oils found in food crops using standard processing technologies. Its classification is shown below:

2.1.1 Bio-alcohols

These are alcohols of organic origin. They consist of two fundamental compounds: Ethanol and methanol. Ethanol presents better expectations in terms of use, the first is known as bioethanol. Ethanol is manufactured following a similar process to that of beer. The raw material is very varied: Cereals (corn, wheat and barley), tubers (cassava, sweet potato, potato and taro), and sucrose (beet, sugarcane, molasses and sweet sorghum) (Salinas-Callejas and Gasca Quezada, 2009). These energy compounds are transformed into sugars, and then converted to ethanol through alcoholic fermentation. It is used in mixtures with conventional gasoline to replace it as a fuel in larger or smaller proportions. Although it does not completely replace gasoline, it confers stability to the mixture and reduces volatility, which facilitates its daily use, storage and transport.

2.1.2 Bio-oils

These are obtained from oilseeds and fried vegetable oils (cooking oil). Conventional tests have been done to drive motors with supermarket oils, and they have been successful. For example, in a research carried out by the Faculty of Chemical Sciences of the National Autonomous University of Chiapas (Unach), they managed to create biodiesel from the transformation of fried cooking vegetable oil (Zhang et al., 2003). This would reduce fuel costs, double the useful life of the vehicles and, therefore, reduce emissions of carbon monoxide, sulfur, aromatic hydrocarbons and solid particles. Vegetable oil does not release contaminants such as sulfur dioxide.

With respect to the biodiesel, it is a liquid fuel that is obtained in a similar way, but in this case, part of the diesel fuel is replaced by various vegetable oils and oil crops from soybean, rapeseed,¹ palm, jatropha² and sunflower. Although these species are usually the most used in its production, it can be obtained from more than 300 plant species, depending on which is the most abundant in the country of origin (Zhang et al., 2003).

3. Disadvantages of First-generation Biofuels

3.1 Environmental

3.1.1 Food crisis

We can point out that an imminent disadvantage observed on first-generation biofuels has been the so-called “food crisis”. Economist Don Mitchell, of the World Bank, estimated that the impact of the alternative use of food by biofuels implied a 70% increase in food prices. In the USA, the administration insisted on using corn to generate biofuels and dismissed its impact on the price of grain calculated at 5%; however, other estimations mention that the increase in the price of corn was 54% (Gerber et al., 2008).

The large increase in biofuel production in the USA and the European Union was supported by subsidies, mandates and preferential import tariffs, which has been an accelerated increase in food prices since 2002 (Valdés and Foster, 2002).

Without these policies, the production of biofuels would be lower, and the costs of food products would be smaller. Since biofuels are produced on the basis of food or compete for land, that can be used to produce food, they directly impact on the price of food by restricting the supply of cereals for food, or indirectly if the food is livestock inputs; which impacts the price of the meat and dairy product.

3.1.2 Water

The production of first-generation biofuels implies a high consumption of fresh water. The growth of ethanol production is directly related to the increase in the demand of fresh water to irrigate the fields. For each kilogram of cereal produced, 1m³ of water is consumed. It has been estimated that the ethanol used in a car, for a route of 20,000 km, implies a water consumption equivalent to 100 people in Europe or 500 people in Africa. At the same time, the corn used to obtain the amount of ethanol for the aforementioned route, could feed 7 people for a whole year (Valdés and Foster, 2002).

3.1.3 Deforestation

Biofuel crops have several effects: Increases in cropland expansion; they take over a huge share in total cropland; they are mainly located in areas that today are occupied by intact ecosystems; and they increase CO₂ emissions from deforestation. Thus, converting intact ecosystems, such as tropical rainforests or open woodlands, which store large amounts of carbon and belong to the most diverse terrestrial ecosystems, counteracts global climate and biodiversity protection g...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Preface
• Table of Contents
• Introduction: What Key Low-Carbon Technologies are Needed to Meet Serious Climate Mitigation Targets and What is their Status?
• Section 1. Biomass Sector
• Section 2. Manufacturing and Construction (Batteries, Built Environment, Automotive, and other Industries)
• Section 3. Electricity and the Grid
• Index