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Energy from Agricultural and Forestry Biomass Waste

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A special issue of Energies (ISSN 1996-1073). This special issue belongs to the section "A4: Bio-Energy".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 July 2024 | Viewed by 6172

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Dr. Matthew Clarke

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Department of Chemical & Petroleum Engineering, University of Calgary, 2500 University Drive N.W., Calgary, AB T2N 1N4, Canada
Interests: natural gas hydrates; cryogenics; thermodynamics; Raman spectroscopy
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

A circular economy is a sustainable economic system in which the reduction in and recirculation of natural resources allows for economic growth to be decoupled from resource utilization. Bio-residuals from agriculture and forestry represent one category of natural resources that have great potential for reduction and recirculation through their conversion to biofuels. Examples of currently under-utilized bio-residuals include agricultural waste streams rich in lignocellulosic biomass such as corn stover, wheat straw and paper mill sludge. These bio-residuals are readily available in most countries, and they can be used to produce a wide range of biofuels including, biogas, bio-oil, ethanol and bio-diesel.

Despite ongoing research activities in the field, there are still many challenges that need to be adequately addressed before bio-residuals become a significant feedstock for bio-fuels. This Special Issue seeks to contribute to disseminating the most recent advancements in the field with respect to both experimental and numerical studies. The focus is placed on research covering all aspects producing bio-fuels from bio-residuals, including feedstock selection, pre-treatment, reaction kinetics and product purification.

We look forward to considering your submissions.

Dr. Matthew Clarke
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Energies is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

agricultural and forestry waste biomass
pretreatment
green solvents
hydrolysis
fermentation
trans-esterification

Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

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16 pages, 1354 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Harvesting Losses for a Cut-and-Chip Harvesting System Operating in Willow Short-Rotation Coppice

by Mark H. Eisenbies and Timothy A. Volk

Energies 2024, 17(7), 1541; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/en17071541 - 23 Mar 2024

Viewed by 471

Abstract

In any short-rotation coppice (SRC) operation, a certain percentage of harvestable material is unrecovered, which contributes to harvesting system losses. This material may be in the form of merchantable and non-merchantable components. These losses affect economics but also influence yield, nutrient cycling, and carbon sequestration. There are very few estimates for harvesting losses available in the literature, and they are limited by small sample sizes. The objective of this work was to provide a broad overview of harvesting losses in willow SRC over a wide range of standing biomass and harvesting conditions. The average total harvesting losses were between 3 and 4 Mg ha⁻¹, which is between 6 and 7 percent of the standing biomass. Losses can spike to nearly 40% on less than 3% of the area. Harvesting losses are significantly, but weakly, correlated with increased standing biomass. These results highlight the complexity and variability in harvesting losses as well as which aspects of harvesting systems might be targeted to reduce or partition material losses. These results have implications for designing machinery and economic modeling of these systems. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Energy from Agricultural and Forestry Biomass Waste)

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10 pages, 255 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Ethanol Production from Sugar Beet Pulp Supported by Microbial Hydrolysis with Trichoderma viride

by Andrea Maria Patelski, Urszula Dziekońska-Kubczak, Maria Balcerek, Katarzyna Pielech-Przybylska, Piotr Dziugan and Joanna Berłowska

Energies 2024, 17(4), 809; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/en17040809 - 08 Feb 2024

Viewed by 594

Abstract

Despite the significant progress in the research, the problem of finding an efficient method for producing bioethanol from renewable lignocellulosic waste materials remains unresolved. Our investigation aimed to assess the efficacy of ethanol production from sugar beet pulp (SBP) utilising various approaches, including pretreatment variations, enzymatic processes, and microbial hydrolysis. Our research involved using the post-cultivation concentrate of T. viride LOCK 0588 grown in the SBP-based medium as a source of enzymes. The SBP hydrolysis process was carried out for 48 h at 50 °C. The quantity of sugar released, up to 61 g dm⁻³, through the utilisation of this extract proved to be on par with the outcomes achieved by the application of the commercial Cellic Ctec2 preparation. The final yields of the ethanol production with the use of the coculture of S. cerevisiae (Ethanol Red) and Scheffersomyces stipitis LOCK 0047 strain were in the range 5.1 ± 0.11 kg 100 kg⁻¹ ÷ 5.38 ± 0.11 kg 100 kg⁻¹. These results provide a solid basis for improving larger-scale industrial procedures that involve converting SBP into bioethanol using a cost-efficient approach of microbial hydrolysis with T. viride and a blend of pentose and hexose fermenting yeast. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Energy from Agricultural and Forestry Biomass Waste)

23 pages, 5668 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Coffee Husks Valorization for Levoglucosan Production and Other Pyrolytic Products through Thermochemical Conversion by Fast Pyrolysis

by Euripedes Garcia Silveira Junior, Victor Haber Perez, Solciaray Cardoso Soares Estefan de Paula, Thays da Costa Silveira, Fabio Lopes Olivares and Oselys Rodriguez Justo

Energies 2023, 16(6), 2835; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/en16062835 - 18 Mar 2023

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 1978

Abstract

Levoglucosan is an anhydrosugar from biomass that has important applications as a platform for obtaining many value-added derivatives with high demand in the chemical industry and bioproducts by fermentation, including biofuels, among others. Thus, the experimental strategy was to intensify the levoglucosan production in the condensable fraction (bio-oil) from pyrolysis gases using different biomass pretreatments before fast pyrolysis according to the following conditions: (a) biomass washing with 10% acetic acid; (b) biomass washing with 0.1% HNO₃, followed by impregnation with 0.1% H₂SO₄; and (c) biomass impregnation with 0.1% H₂SO₄. The pyrolysis was carried out in a pyroprobe reactor, coupled to GC/MS to verify the progress of the chemicals formed at 400, 500, and 600 °C. Although levoglucosan was the main target, the programs showed more than 200 pyrolytic compounds of which more than 40 were identified, including organic acids, ketones, aldehydes, furans, and phenols. Then, principal component analysis (PCA) allowed for the discrimination of the simultaneous effect of biomass acid treatment and pyrolysis temperature on the formation of the pyrolytic products. All treated biomasses with acids resulted in a levoglucosan yield increase, but the best result was achieved with acetic acid at 500 °C which resulted from 7-fold higher levoglucosan production with changes in the profiles by-products formed concerning untreated biomass. This result was attributed to the alkali and alkaline earth metals reduction and partial removal of lignin content and extractives by acid washing, increasing the cellulose and hemicellulose relative content in the treated biomass. This hypothesis was also confirmed by scanning electron microscope (SEM) and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) qualitative analysis. Thus, the results achieved in this work show the potential of this biomass for levoglucosan production and other pyrolytic products, thereby being able to mitigate the environmental impact of this agricultural residue and contribute to the development of the coffee agro-industrial chain and the production of bioenergy from lignocellulosic biomass. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Energy from Agricultural and Forestry Biomass Waste)

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14 pages, 2025 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Prediction of the Behavior of Sunflower Husk Ash after Its Processing by Various Torrefaction Methods

by Rafail Isemin, Fouzi Tabet, Artemy Nebyvaev, Vadim Kokh-Tatarenko, Sergey Kuzmin, Oleg Milovanov, Dmitry Klimov, Alexander Mikhalev, Semen Dobkin and Yuri Zhulaev

Energies 2022, 15(20), 7483; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/en15207483 - 11 Oct 2022

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1759

Abstract

Biomass can be considered an alternative to coal in the production of heat and electricity. Many types of biomass are waste from agriculture and the food industry. This waste is cheap, readily available, and replenished annually. However, most agricultural and food industry wastes (sugar cane pulp, olive and sunflower oil production wastes, straw, etc.) have ash with a low melting point. This leads to a rapid growth of ash deposits on the heating surfaces of boilers; as a result, the actual efficiency of boilers in which waste from agriculture and the food industry is burned is 45–50%. Known biomass pre-treatment technologies that allow for the fuel characteristics of biowaste. For example, leaching of biowaste in water at a temperature of 80–240 °C makes it possible to drastically reduce the content of alkali metal compounds in the ash, the presence of which reduces the melting point of the ash. However, this biomass pre-treatment technology is complex and requires additional costs for drying the treated biomass. We proposed to use torrefaction for pre-treatment of biomass, which makes it possible to increase the heat of combustion of biomass, increase the hydrophobicity of biomass, and reduce the cost of grinding it. However, we are not aware of studies that have studied the effect of torrefaction on the chemical composition of ash from the point of view of solving the problem of preventing the formation of agglomerates and reducing the growth rate of ash deposits on the convective heating surfaces of boilers. In this paper, the characteristics of sunflower husk subjected to torrefaction in an environment of superheated steam at a temperature of 300 °C and in an environment of gaseous products at a temperature of 250 °C are studied. All experiments were conducted using fluidized bed technology. The resulting biochar has a calorific value of 14.8–23% higher than the initial husk. To assess the behavior of sunflower husk ash, predictive coefficients were calculated. Torrefaction of sunflower husks does not exclude the possibility of slagging of the furnace but reduces the likelihood of slagging by 2.31–7.27 times. According to calculations, the torrefaction of sunflower husks reduces the likelihood of ash deposits on the convective heating surfaces of the boiler by 2.1–12.2 times. According to its fuel characteristics, the husk, after torrefaction in an environment of superheated steam, approaches wood waste, i.e., can be burned separately without additives or mixtures with other fuels with refractory ash. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Energy from Agricultural and Forestry Biomass Waste)

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Review

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15 pages, 2179 KiB

Open AccessReview

Machine Learning Technologies in the Supply Chain Management Research of Biodiesel: A Review

by Sojung Kim, Junyoung Seo and Sumin Kim

Energies 2024, 17(6), 1316; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/en17061316 - 09 Mar 2024

Viewed by 652

Abstract

Biodiesel has received worldwide attention as a renewable energy resource that reduces greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Unlike traditional fossil fuels, such as coal, oil, and natural gas, biodiesel made of vegetable oils, animal fats, or recycled restaurant grease incurs higher production costs, so its supply chain should be managed efficiently for operational cost reduction. To this end, multiple machine learning technologies have recently been applied to estimate feedstock yield, biodiesel productivity, and biodiesel quality. This study aims to identify the machine learning technologies useful in particular areas of supply chain management by review of the scientific literature. As a result, nine machine learning algorithms, the Gaussian process model (GPM), random forest (RF), artificial neural network (ANN), support vector machine (SVM), k-nearest neighbor (KNN), AdaBoost regression, multiple linear regression (MLR), linear regression (LR). and multilayer perceptron (MLP), are used for feedstock yield estimation, biodiesel productivity prediction, and biodiesel quality prediction. Among these, RF and ANN were identified as the most appropriate algorithms, providing high prediction accuracy. This finding will help engineers and managers understand concepts of machine learning technologies so they can use appropriate technology to solve operational problems in supply chain management. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Energy from Agricultural and Forestry Biomass Waste)

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