The Potential of Thermal Plasma Gasification of Olive Pomace Charcoal

Andrius Tamošiūnas, Ajmia Chouchène, Pranas Valatkevičius, Dovilė Gimžauskaitė, Mindaugas Aikas, Rolandas Uscila, Makrem Ghorbel and Mejdi Jeguirim
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Andrius Tamošiūnas: Plasma Processing Laboratory, Lithuanian Energy Institute, Breslaujos str. 3, LT-44403 Kaunas, Lithuania
Ajmia Chouchène: Institut Supérieur des Sciences et Technologies de l'Environnement, Technopole de Borj-Cedria B.P. 95, 2050 Hammam-Lif, Tunisia
Pranas Valatkevičius: Plasma Processing Laboratory, Lithuanian Energy Institute, Breslaujos str. 3, LT-44403 Kaunas, Lithuania
Dovilė Gimžauskaitė: Plasma Processing Laboratory, Lithuanian Energy Institute, Breslaujos str. 3, LT-44403 Kaunas, Lithuania
Mindaugas Aikas: Plasma Processing Laboratory, Lithuanian Energy Institute, Breslaujos str. 3, LT-44403 Kaunas, Lithuania
Rolandas Uscila: Plasma Processing Laboratory, Lithuanian Energy Institute, Breslaujos str. 3, LT-44403 Kaunas, Lithuania
Makrem Ghorbel: OliveCoal, ZI El Jem, 5160 Mahdia BP69, Tunisia
Mejdi Jeguirim: Institut de Sciences des Matériaux de Mulhouse, Universite de Haute-Alsace, 15 rue Jean Starcky, 68057 Mulhouse CEDEX, France

Energies, 2017, vol. 10, issue 5, 1-14

Abstract: Annually, the olive oil industry generates a significant amount of by-products, such as olive pomace, olive husks, tree prunings, leaves, pits, and branches. Therefore, the recovery of these residues has become a major challenge in Mediterranean countries. The utilization of olive industry residues has received much attention in recent years, especially for energy purposes. Accordingly, this primary experimental study aims at investigating the potential of olive biomass waste for energy recovery in terms of synthesis gas (or syngas) production using the thermal arc plasma gasification method. The olive charcoal made from the exhausted olive solid waste (olive pomace) was chosen as a reference material for primary experiments with known composition from the performed proximate and ultimate analysis. The experiments were carried out at various operational parameters: raw biomass and water vapour flow rates and the plasma generator power. The producer gas involved principally CO, H 2 , and CO 2 with the highest concentrations of 41.17%, 13.06%, and 13.48%, respectively. The produced synthesis gas has a lower heating value of 6.09 MJ/nm 3 at the H 2 O/C ratio of 3.15 and the plasma torch had a power of 52.2 kW.

Keywords: biomass; olive pomace; charcoal; thermal plasma; gasification; synthesis gas (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: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

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