Nowadays the utilization of vegetable oils, particularly the palm oil, as fuel in the power plant, has made a significant development in the last few years. This vegetable oil can be used in particular in slow marine-...Nowadays the utilization of vegetable oils, particularly the palm oil, as fuel in the power plant, has made a significant development in the last few years. This vegetable oil can be used in particular in slow marine-derived diesel internal combustion engine (ICE), with an electric efficiency of about 40%. The efficiency is connected to the size of the power plant. Moreover, the considerable amount of the required vegetable oil to feed the system forces, especially in Italy, makes it necessary to import the fuel. This is the most critical element as the palm oil is subject to continuous variations in prices. Due to this variation it is difficult to stabilize a convenient fuel supply for a long period. The paper aims to evaluate and estimate the economic, technical and environmental feasibility of a 20 MW plant for the stationary power generation fed with palm oil, enlightening the system solution (technical constructive aspects) and the economic appraisal, on the basis of variations in oil prices. A comparison with a cogenerative power plant has been also carried out and, at last, the economic sensibility analysis based on the fuel cost and the European mechanisms of biomass incentives is performed.展开更多
The current energy crisis could be alleviated by enhancing energy generation using the abundant biomass waste resources. Agricultural and forest wastes are the leading organic waste streams that can be transformed int...The current energy crisis could be alleviated by enhancing energy generation using the abundant biomass waste resources. Agricultural and forest wastes are the leading organic waste streams that can be transformed into useful alternative energy resources. Pyrolysis is one of the technologies for converting biomass into more valuable products, such as bio-oil, bio-char, and syngas. This work investigated the production of bio-oil through batch pyrolysis technology. A fixed bed pyrolyzer was designed and fabricated for bio-oil production. The major components of the system include a fixed bed reactor, a condenser, and a bio-oil collector. The reactor was heated using a cylindrical biomass external heater. The pyrolysis process was carried out in a reactor at a pressure of 1atm and a varying operating temperature of 150˚C, 250˚C, 350˚C to 450˚C for 120 minutes. The mass of 1kg of coconut fiber was used with particle sizes between 2.36 mm - 4.75 mm. The results show that the higher the temperature, the more volume of bio-oil produced, with the highest yield being 39.2%, at 450˚C with a heating rate of 10˚C/min. The Fourier transformation Infrared (FTIR) Spectroscopy analysis was used to analyze the bio-oil components. The obtained bio-oil has a pH of 2.4, a density of 1019.385 kg/m<sup>3</sup>, and a calorific value of 17.5 MJ/kg. The analysis also showed the presence of high-oxygenated compounds;carboxylic acids, phenols, alcohols, and branched oxygenated hydrocarbons as the main compounds present in the bio-oil. The results inferred that the liquid product could be bestowed as an alternative resource for polycarbonate material production.展开更多
The authors performed economic assessment of producing biodiesel at pilot scale using used cooking oil as feed-oil in a Bio-Pro 380 EX biodiesel reactor. The overall results suggest that the biodiesel production using...The authors performed economic assessment of producing biodiesel at pilot scale using used cooking oil as feed-oil in a Bio-Pro 380 EX biodiesel reactor. The overall results suggest that the biodiesel production using used cooking oil is a viable project even at large or medium scale. The payback period for producing biodiesel at a pilot scale of 31,320 liters per year was 1.5 years, which was 1 month longer than the payback period for a large plant capacity of 66,000 liters per year. The study demonstrated that the unit selling price and unit production cost are sensitive to the economic feasibility of biodiesel production, since price variations of BWP 1 result in at least a 13% increase and 12% decrease in profit, respectively. The study further revealed that feed-oil (used cooking oil) was the most expensive among all the inputs accounting for 61%, followed by methanol and direct labour with 19% and 13% respectively. The overall energy recorded to produce approximately 360 liters of biodiesel contributed to 2% only, suggesting that Bio-Pro 380 EX biodiesel reactor is relatively a low energy intensity processor. The situation is suitable for the promotion of biodiesel particularly in countries where initiatives to stimulate the development of biofuels are at its infant stage Botswana included.展开更多
文摘Nowadays the utilization of vegetable oils, particularly the palm oil, as fuel in the power plant, has made a significant development in the last few years. This vegetable oil can be used in particular in slow marine-derived diesel internal combustion engine (ICE), with an electric efficiency of about 40%. The efficiency is connected to the size of the power plant. Moreover, the considerable amount of the required vegetable oil to feed the system forces, especially in Italy, makes it necessary to import the fuel. This is the most critical element as the palm oil is subject to continuous variations in prices. Due to this variation it is difficult to stabilize a convenient fuel supply for a long period. The paper aims to evaluate and estimate the economic, technical and environmental feasibility of a 20 MW plant for the stationary power generation fed with palm oil, enlightening the system solution (technical constructive aspects) and the economic appraisal, on the basis of variations in oil prices. A comparison with a cogenerative power plant has been also carried out and, at last, the economic sensibility analysis based on the fuel cost and the European mechanisms of biomass incentives is performed.
文摘The current energy crisis could be alleviated by enhancing energy generation using the abundant biomass waste resources. Agricultural and forest wastes are the leading organic waste streams that can be transformed into useful alternative energy resources. Pyrolysis is one of the technologies for converting biomass into more valuable products, such as bio-oil, bio-char, and syngas. This work investigated the production of bio-oil through batch pyrolysis technology. A fixed bed pyrolyzer was designed and fabricated for bio-oil production. The major components of the system include a fixed bed reactor, a condenser, and a bio-oil collector. The reactor was heated using a cylindrical biomass external heater. The pyrolysis process was carried out in a reactor at a pressure of 1atm and a varying operating temperature of 150˚C, 250˚C, 350˚C to 450˚C for 120 minutes. The mass of 1kg of coconut fiber was used with particle sizes between 2.36 mm - 4.75 mm. The results show that the higher the temperature, the more volume of bio-oil produced, with the highest yield being 39.2%, at 450˚C with a heating rate of 10˚C/min. The Fourier transformation Infrared (FTIR) Spectroscopy analysis was used to analyze the bio-oil components. The obtained bio-oil has a pH of 2.4, a density of 1019.385 kg/m<sup>3</sup>, and a calorific value of 17.5 MJ/kg. The analysis also showed the presence of high-oxygenated compounds;carboxylic acids, phenols, alcohols, and branched oxygenated hydrocarbons as the main compounds present in the bio-oil. The results inferred that the liquid product could be bestowed as an alternative resource for polycarbonate material production.
文摘The authors performed economic assessment of producing biodiesel at pilot scale using used cooking oil as feed-oil in a Bio-Pro 380 EX biodiesel reactor. The overall results suggest that the biodiesel production using used cooking oil is a viable project even at large or medium scale. The payback period for producing biodiesel at a pilot scale of 31,320 liters per year was 1.5 years, which was 1 month longer than the payback period for a large plant capacity of 66,000 liters per year. The study demonstrated that the unit selling price and unit production cost are sensitive to the economic feasibility of biodiesel production, since price variations of BWP 1 result in at least a 13% increase and 12% decrease in profit, respectively. The study further revealed that feed-oil (used cooking oil) was the most expensive among all the inputs accounting for 61%, followed by methanol and direct labour with 19% and 13% respectively. The overall energy recorded to produce approximately 360 liters of biodiesel contributed to 2% only, suggesting that Bio-Pro 380 EX biodiesel reactor is relatively a low energy intensity processor. The situation is suitable for the promotion of biodiesel particularly in countries where initiatives to stimulate the development of biofuels are at its infant stage Botswana included.
