A new role of supercritical ethanol in macroalgae liquefaction (Saccharina japonica): Understanding ethanol participation, yield, and energy efficiency

Hassan Zeb, Jaeyeon Choi, Yunje Kim and Jaehoon Kim

Energy, 2017, vol. 118, issue C, 116-126

Abstract: Liquefaction of macroalgae was performed in a stirred autoclave reactor using supercritical ethanol (scEtOH) as a solvent. There was a sharp transition in ethanol consumption during macroalgae liquefaction in scEtOH when the temperature was increased from 350 to 400 °C. At 350 °C, a small amount of ethanol (6 wt%) reacted with intermediates, while at 400 °C, 18 wt% of the ethanol was consumed. Taking into account this increased consumption of ethanol at 400 °C, the bio-oil yield decreased from 79.2 to 53.9 wt%, energy recovery from 202.5% to 72.2%, and energy efficiency from 111.6% to 62.7%. The produced bio-oil had a molecular weight of 398 g mol−1, a HHV of 36.49 MJ kg−1, an O/C ratio of 0.12, and a H/C ratio of 1.58. To confirm the unique role of scEtOH in biomass liquefaction, subcritical water (subH2O) and supercritical water (scH2O)-based liquefactions were carried out and the results compared with those obtained for scEtOH-based liquefaction. GC-MS results from the bio-oil produced with scH2O revealed the percentage area of compounds containing an ethoxy group to be as low as 20%, while this value reached 62% when using scEtOH.

Keywords: Macroalgae; Supercritical ethanol; Liquefaction; Ethanol quantification; Energy efficiency (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544216318205
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

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:eee:energy:v:118:y:2017:i:c:p:116-126

DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2016.12.016

Access Statistics for this article

Energy is currently edited by Henrik Lund and Mark J. Kaiser

More articles in Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().