A Comprehensive Analysis of the Risks Associated with the Determination of Biofuels’ Calorific Value by Bomb Calorimetry

Moaaz Shehab, Camelia Stratulat, Kemal Ozcan, Aylin Boztepe, Alper Isleyen, Edwin Zondervan and Kai Moshammer
Additional contact information
Moaaz Shehab: Physikalisch Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB), Bundesallee 100, 38116 Braunschweig, Germany
Camelia Stratulat: Biroul Roman de Metrologie, Vitan Barzesti 11, 042122 Bucharest, Romania
Kemal Ozcan: TÜBITAK UME National Metrology Institute, Gebze Barış Mah. Zeki Acar Cad. No:1, 41470 Kocaeli, Turkey
Aylin Boztepe: TÜBITAK UME National Metrology Institute, Gebze Barış Mah. Zeki Acar Cad. No:1, 41470 Kocaeli, Turkey
Alper Isleyen: TÜBITAK UME National Metrology Institute, Gebze Barış Mah. Zeki Acar Cad. No:1, 41470 Kocaeli, Turkey
Edwin Zondervan: Sustainable Process Technology, Twente University, Drienerlolaan 5, 7522 NB Enschede, The Netherlands
Kai Moshammer: Physikalisch Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB), Bundesallee 100, 38116 Braunschweig, Germany

Energies, 2022, vol. 15, issue 8, 1-20

Abstract: Two of the most commonly used solid biomass sources for fuel are wood chips and wood pellets. The calorific value and the moisture content of those biofuels determine the efficiency of the CHP and the biorefinery plants. Therefore, with the increased shift towards a biobased economy, the biomass cost and its physical properties must be precisely determined. Most of the current standards are lacking and provide neither enough details about the issues caused by the biomass heterogeneity nor with the variation in experimental practice. Phenomena such as data scattering, poor repeatability and wide uncertainty, are mostly observed during the measurements of the calorific value and the moisture content. To overcome such issues, an interlaboratory comparison between three national metrology institutes using bomb calorimetry has taken place. The comparison helped to identify the root causes behind the poor reproducibility of the wood samples. Factors such as the equilibrium moisture content of the biomass, the pellet mass, the applied pressure to form the pellet, the handling techniques and the determination errors are highlighted and analyzed. The final results paved the way to provide an enhanced detailed experimental practice where the repeatability and reproducibility have been strongly improved. Moreover, the detailed uncertainty sources and calculations are presented. It has been found that by fulfilling the recommended approach the measurement repeatability improved by up to 50–80%, while the final uncertainty improved by 10–30%. This enhancement leads to a maximum relative expanded uncertainty of around ±1% (coverage factor of k = 2 and a confidence level of 95%).

Keywords: wood biomass; calorific value; moisture content; calorimetry; repeatability; reproducibility; uncertainty; fair pricing; CHP; biorefinery (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: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/15/8/2771/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/15/8/2771/ (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:15:y:2022:i:8:p:2771-:d:790439

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 ().