Świechowski, K.; Leśniak, M.; Białowiec, A. Medical Peat Waste Upcycling to Carbonized Solid Fuel in the Torrefaction Process. Energies2021, 14, 6053.
Świechowski, K.; Leśniak, M.; Białowiec, A. Medical Peat Waste Upcycling to Carbonized Solid Fuel in the Torrefaction Process. Energies 2021, 14, 6053.
Świechowski, K.; Leśniak, M.; Białowiec, A. Medical Peat Waste Upcycling to Carbonized Solid Fuel in the Torrefaction Process. Energies2021, 14, 6053.
Świechowski, K.; Leśniak, M.; Białowiec, A. Medical Peat Waste Upcycling to Carbonized Solid Fuel in the Torrefaction Process. Energies 2021, 14, 6053.
Abstract
Peat is the main type of peloid used in Polish cosmetic/healing spa facilities. Depending on treatment and origin, peat waste can be contaminated microbiologically, and as result, it has to be incinerated in medical waste incineration plants without energy recovery (local law). Such a situation leads to peat waste management costs increase. Therefore in this work, we checked the possibility of peat waste upcycling to carbonized solid fuel (CSF) using torrefaction. Torrefaction is a thermal treatment process that removes microbiological contamination and improves the fuel properties of peat waste. In work torrefaction conditions (temperature and time) on CSF quality were tested. Parallelly, peat decomposition kinetics using TGA, and torrefaction kinetics with lifetime prediction using macro-TGA were determined. Furthermore, torrefaction theoretical mass and energy balance were determined. The results of the tested peat were compared with reference material (wood), and as result, obtained data can be used to adjust currently used wood torrefaction technologies for peat torrefaction. The results show that torrefaction can improve the high heating value of peat waste from 19.0 MJ x kg-1 to 21.3 MJ x kg-1, peat main decomposition takes place at 200-550 °C following second reaction order (n=2), with an activation energy of 33.34 kJ x mol-1 and pre-exponential factor of 4.40 x 10-1 s-1. Moreover, DSC analysis revealed that peat torrefaction required slightly more energy than wood torrefaction, and macro TGA showed that peat torrefaction has lower torrefaction constant reaction rates (k) than wood 1.05 x 10-5 - 3.15 x 10-5 vs 1.43 x 10-5 - 7.25 x 10-5 s-1.
Keywords
peloids; waste to energy; waste to carbon; circular economy; torrefied biomass; kinetics lifetime prediction; mass balance; energy balance; fuel properties
Subject
Engineering, Energy and Fuel Technology
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
