Co-Pyrolysis of Woody Biomass and Oil Shale—A Kinetics and Modelling Study

Alejandro Lyons Ceron, Richard Ochieng, Shiplu Sarker (), Oliver Järvik and Alar Konist
Additional contact information
Alejandro Lyons Ceron: Department of Energy Technology, Tallinn University of Technology, 19086 Tallinn, Estonia
Richard Ochieng: Department of Manufacturing and Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, 2815 Gjøvik, Norway
Shiplu Sarker: Department of Manufacturing and Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, 2815 Gjøvik, Norway
Oliver Järvik: Department of Energy Technology, Tallinn University of Technology, 19086 Tallinn, Estonia
Alar Konist: Department of Energy Technology, Tallinn University of Technology, 19086 Tallinn, Estonia

Energies, 2024, vol. 17, issue 5, 1-18

Abstract: The co-pyrolysis of biomass and fossil fuels has been the subject of studies on sustainable energy. Co-feeding oil shale with woody biomass can contribute to a transition into carbon neutrality. The present study analysed the thermal decomposition behaviour of oil shale and biomass blends (0:1, 3:7, 1:1, 7:3, 9:1, and 1:0) through thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) at 80–630 °C with a heating rate of 10 °C/min in CO 2 and N 2 atmospheres. A comparison of theoretical and experimental residual mass yields of oil shale–biomass mixtures indicated no significant interactions between the fuels. The blends contributed to a decrease of up to 34.4 wt% in solid residues compared to individual pyrolysis of oil shale, and the TGA curves were shifted from up to 10 °C to a lower temperature when the biomass ratio increased. The use of a CO 2 atmosphere resulted in the production of solid residues, comparable to the one obtained with the N 2 atmosphere. CO 2 atmosphere can be used in oil shale–biomass co-pyrolysis, without affecting the decomposition process or increasing the yield of residues. A kinetic model method is proposed based on TGA data at 10, 20, and 30 °C/min. The apparent activation energies for a temperature range of 200–520 °C were in the order of 139, 155, 164, 197, 154, and 167 kJ/mol for oil shale–biomass 0:1, 3:7, 1:1, 7:3, 9:1, and 1:0 blends, respectively. From the isoconversional kinetic analysis, a two-stage pyrolysis was observed, which separated biomass and oil shale pyrolysis. A simulation of biomass and oil shale co-pyrolysis was conducted in Aspen Plus ® using TGA-derived kinetic data. The model prediction resulted in a close match with the experimental thermogravimetric data with absolute errors from 1.75 to 3.78%, which highlights the relevance of TGA analysis in simulating co-pyrolysis processes.

Keywords: co-pyrolysis; kinetics; modelling; oil shale; woody biomass (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: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/17/5/1055/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/17/5/1055/ (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:17:y:2024:i:5:p:1055-:d:1344511

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 ().