EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Conversion of Potato Peel into Solid Biofuel Through Torrefaction in a Fluidized Bed of Olivine Sand

Rafail Isemin, Mathieu Brulé, Dmitry Klimov (), Oleg Milovanov, Alexander Mikhalev, Carlos Eduardo de Farias Silva, Sergey Kuzmin, Kirill Milovanov and Xianhua Guo
Additional contact information
Rafail Isemin: Biocenter, Tambov State Technical University, Sovetskaya St. 106, 392000 Tambov, Russia
Mathieu Brulé: Independent Researcher, 11100 Narbonne, France
Dmitry Klimov: Biocenter, Tambov State Technical University, Sovetskaya St. 106, 392000 Tambov, Russia
Oleg Milovanov: Biocenter, Tambov State Technical University, Sovetskaya St. 106, 392000 Tambov, Russia
Alexander Mikhalev: Biocenter, Tambov State Technical University, Sovetskaya St. 106, 392000 Tambov, Russia
Carlos Eduardo de Farias Silva: Chemical Engineering Department, Technology Center, University of Alagoas, Alagoas 57072-900, Brazil
Sergey Kuzmin: Biocenter, Tambov State Technical University, Sovetskaya St. 106, 392000 Tambov, Russia
Kirill Milovanov: Biocenter, Tambov State Technical University, Sovetskaya St. 106, 392000 Tambov, Russia
Xianhua Guo: College of Environmental and Chemical Engineering, Chongqing Three Gorges University, Chongqing 404020, China

Energies, 2025, vol. 18, issue 20, 1-14

Abstract: Potato peels are a waste product accounting for 15–40% of the mass of raw potatoes, depending on the processing method employed. The production of solid biofuel from potato peel was investigated in a superheated-steam fluidized bed filled with olivine sand. The co-fluidization of dried, crushed potato peels together with olivine sand was also investigated. Stable co-fluidization of olivine sand and crushed potato peels can be achieved when the mass fraction of potato peels in the fluidized bed does not exceed 3% ( w / w ). In a fluidized bed containing 3% % ( w / w ) potato peel, increasing the operational temperature of torrefaction from 200 to 300 °C with a processing duration of 30 min resulted in a 1.35-fold increase in HHV from 20.68 MJ/kg up to 27.93 MJ/kg based on ash-free dry mass. The effects of torrefaction temperature and duration on 5-hydroxymethylfurfural and furfural contents in condensable gaseous torrefaction products were studied, along with changes in the chemical composition of potato peel ash as a result of torrefaction. Furthermore, we analyzed the bed agglomeration index (BAI) predicting the possibility of agglomerate formation during combustion of torrefied potato peel in a fluidized bed and found that the probability of agglomeration may decrease along with increasing temperature and duration of the torrefaction process. Nevertheless, only the most severe torrefaction conditions of 300 °C for 30 min may completely prevent the risk of agglomerate formation during the subsequent combustion of torrefied potato peels as a solid biofuel. The proposed potato peel processing technology may be used in future frozen and fried potato factories in order to solve waste disposal issues while also reducing the costs of heat and electricity generation, as well as allowing for the recovery of high-value biochemicals from the torrefaction condensate.

Keywords: potato peel; torrefaction; fluidized bed; olivine sand; biofuel; ash; 5-hydroxymethylfurfural; furfural (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: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/18/20/5496/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/18/20/5496/ (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:18:y:2025:i:20:p:5496-:d:1774253

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Cassie Shen

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

 
Page updated 2025-10-19
Handle: RePEc:gam:jeners:v:18:y:2025:i:20:p:5496-:d:1774253