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Product evaluation of hydrothermal carbonization of biomass: semi-continuous vs. batch feeding

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Abstract

Interest in hydrothermal carbonization (HTC) is increasing worldwide due to its outstanding capabilities. This study introduces a novel semi-continuous feeding system to feed the biomass slurry against the high pressure of an HTC reactor. As expected in a semi-continuous operation, the biomass would be instantaneously exposed to the desired pressure and temperature, instead of a gradual increase to the desired temperature. Higher degrees of carbonization, lower cellulose crystallinity, improved hexagonal graphene sheets, surface hydrophobic characteristics, and higher thermal stability were observed at elevated temperatures in products from semi-continuous HTC when compared with products from batch operation. Reaction pathways were proposed for both batch and semi-continuous operations on the basis of physical and chemical characterization results. For HTC at 260 °C, the proposed semi-continuous system showed approximately 3% higher carbon content in the obtained hydrochar and a 25-min reduction in required time to reach 260 °C. The promising conclusion of these results is that by introducing continuous systems in HTC, not only will the time of the process cycle decrease, it will also achieve higher degrees of carbonization.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge the students of the University of Guelph that were involved in the design and fabrication of the semi-continuous system: Jonathan Pile, Brian Seed, Jason Wilson, Rosy Tutton, Diana Constantinescu, Mohammad Shallouf, and Umna Arshad.

Funding

The study was financially supported by the research grants from Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC Discovery), Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change (MOECC) for Best in Science program, and Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food, and Rural Affairs (OMAFRA).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Mechanical Engineering Program, School of Engineering, University of Guelph, 50 Stone Road East, Guelph, Ontario, N1G 2 W1, Canada

    Mohammad Heidari, Omid Norouzi, Kevin MacDermid-Watts & Animesh Dutta

  2. Faculty of Sustainable Design Engineering, University of Prince Edward Island, Charlottetown, Canada

    Bishnu Acharya

  3. School of Chemical Engineering, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, Henan, China

    Yongsheng Zhang

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  1. Mohammad Heidari
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Correspondence to Animesh Dutta.

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Heidari, M., Norouzi, O., MacDermid-Watts, K. et al. Product evaluation of hydrothermal carbonization of biomass: semi-continuous vs. batch feeding. Biomass Conv. Bioref. 12, 15–25 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13399-020-00932-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13399-020-00932-6

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