Impact of Pretreatment on Hydrothermally Carbonized Spruce

Anna Partridge, Ekaterina Sermyagina and Esa Vakkilainen
Additional contact information
Anna Partridge: Energy Technology, Laboratory of Sustainable Energy Systems, LUT University, PL 20, 53851 Lappeenranta, Finland
Ekaterina Sermyagina: Energy Technology, Laboratory of Sustainable Energy Systems, LUT University, PL 20, 53851 Lappeenranta, Finland
Esa Vakkilainen: Energy Technology, Laboratory of Sustainable Energy Systems, LUT University, PL 20, 53851 Lappeenranta, Finland

Energies, 2020, vol. 13, issue 11, 1-13

Abstract: Upgrading biomass waste streams can improve economics in wood industries by adding value to the process. This work considers use of a hydrothermal carbonization (HTC) process for the residual feedstock after lignin and hemicelluloses extraction. Batch experiments were performed at 200–240 °C temperatures and three hours residence time with an 8:1 biomass to water ratio for two feedstocks: Raw spruce and spruce after lignin extraction. The proximate analysis and heating value showed similar results for both feedstocks, indicating that the thermochemical conversion is not impacted by the removal of lignin and hemicelluloses; the pretreatment processing slightly increases the heating value of the treated feedstock, but the HTC conversion process produces a consistent upgrading trend for both the treated and untreated feedstocks. The energy yield was 9.7 percentage points higher for the treated wood on average across the range temperatures due to the higher mass yield in the treated experiments. The energy densification ratio and the mass yield were strongly correlated with reaction temperature, while the energy yield was not. Lignocellulosic composition of the solid HTC product is mainly affected by HTC treatment, the effect of lignin extraction is negligible.

Keywords: hydrothermal carbonization; lignin; biomass; energy densification (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/11/2984/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/11/2984/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:13:y:2020:i:11:p:2984-:d:369560

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().