The Future of Bamboo Plantation Is Renewable Energy and Water Purification

Fossil fuel reserves are dwindling while energy demand continues to rise, the phenomenon of climate change, environmental degradation due to pollution and the depletion of forest area on the surface of the earth makes people think to look for solutions. It is estimated that the earth needs a new forest covering 70 million ha within the next 2 years, which means that each country needs to make 320 thousand ha. Bamboo plant has very promising prospects in the future, amid concern the world over, to climate change, forest protection and a number of important issues like the above.

Bamboo is a plant source of timber that can grow rapidly in the earth. And a plant replacement timber from tropical forests which are now greatly reduced due to the enormous demand from industry, therefore attention to the production of bamboo began to increase in all continents either Asia, Africa, Europe and America. In this 21st century bamboo industry will continue to be an increasingly valuable commodity. Even the African continent has seen bamboo as a potential source of renewable energy. Europe has also seen the potential of bamboo as a source of bioenergy. While in India, one of the countries in Asia are building power plants using fuel made ​​from bamboo.

Bamboo is a plant that is able to regenerate itself naturally. While bamboo stalks are harvested, then the new shoots will appear and replace them within a few months. If compared with a tree that can only be harvested with the rotation a few years, bamboo can be harvested on a regular basis per year. Rapid growth of bamboo which means ensuring the continuity to meet the ongoing needs.

Depending on the type, bamboo plantations can be earning more than 50 years. First harvest bamboo plants in plantations usually begins after age 5-7 years. The process of harvesting can be done with equipment that is fairly simple and inexpensive. Such as hand saws, and other simple tools that are often in need.

In plantations, bamboo will produce biomass that can support to maintain a green environment. 1,000 hectares of bamboo plantation can produce approximately 30 thousand tons of timber resources. The cost to create a new plantation depends on the cost of labor, land preparation, fertilizer, irrigation, and plants. It costs almost the same as making timber plantation. But there is a huge difference at the payback period, the timber takes longer than bamboo plantation. Investment in bamboo plantations will be back in less than 10 years. And for that reason tersebutlah the bamboo plantations generate profits faster than wood. Bamboo plantations will be very profitable after 5 years.

Potential of bamboo as raw material for renewable energy such as charcoal and torrified wood. By using continuous pyrolysis technology that products can be produced. Bamboo charcoal can then be further processed into activated charcoal (activated carbon) for water purification. Due to the increasingly severe environmental degradation due to soil pollution by industry and households, the need for activated charcoal for water purification will be even greater.

Used Tire Pyrolysis: An Efficient Method Extracting Energy from Used Tires

Vehicle tires will only end up in landfills and objects made ​​of rubber is causing serious environmental problems. Every year around the world more than one billion vehicle tires discarded. Tire production in Indonesia also increased from year to year. Along with that, then the waste tires are not used in the environment is increasing. Most people prefer to throw it away than to recycle more useful results. Experts often confused with the environmental problems caused by tires that are not easily biodegradable material.

Conditions of use of energy is still dominated by fossil fuels should be reduced slowly and gradually replaced by renewable energy. According to Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Darwin Zahedy Saleh , oil in Indonesia is expected to expire within the next 23 years and can not be updated. Petroleum is not used to meet energy needs but also as a raw material of chemical industry products such as plastics and tires.  

Abundant amount of used tires that can be recycled by thermal decomposition using pyrolysis to produce a primary product of petroleum that can be used as a source of energy or raw materials of many chemical industries. Other products in the form of carbon black will be widely used for coloring tires, syngas also for the application of energy or production of electricity and steel wire as raw material for metal casting.

Processing of used tires do not just simply solve the waste problem but also be economically advantageous. Great added value will be obtained when the product processing scrap tires have high economic value, a commodity that is always needed by communities and sustainable. The use of continuous pyrolysis technology is the right choice for the processing of scrap tires to produce petroleum products (crude oil), black carbon, syngas and steel wire, all of which have added great value and is the raw material of various industries.

Every 60 tonnes of scrap tires are processed in the pyrolysis can produce:
-18 000 liters of oil
-18 000 kg of carbon black
-6600 Kg of steel wire
-17,400 Kg syngas (synthetic gas)

Scrap tires are initially reduced size in about 1 inch and then go into the pyrolysis unit as the unit of production. A carbon black product, syngas, and crude oil will come out on the pyrolysis unit outlet. Syngas can be directly used for electricity generation using gas engine powerplant (gas generator), the capacity of 6o tons / day of INPUT will produce about 1 MW of electricity. While carbon black products of the pyrolysis unit will be passed in a magnetic separator for the separation of steel wire.

For many industries that are currently utilizing scrap tires as a fuel by burning it directly, so it is better to use the pyrolysis unit to extract the energy content in scrap tires. Direct combustion of scrap tires will cause a major environmental pollution and harm. It also does not provide much added value. Continuous pyrolysis will be able to extract the energy content of scrap tires effectively and efficiently, such as syngas produced from pyrolysis can be used as an energy source, because in that place no longer require an additional power supply, or use the crude oil produced for the same purpose .

We Will Produce Charcoal As You Wish

Charcoal has widespread uses include metallurgy, tobbaco curing, water purification (activated carbon), poultry and animal feeds, soil Amendment, and other miscellaneous uses. Charcoal is made by a certain process conditions to achieve the specifications according to their usefulness.

The amounts of moisture (2 to 4 percent), volatiles (18 to 23 percent), ash (1 to 4 percent), and fixed carbon (74 to 81 percent) in charcoal provide an average index of quality for general market acceptance either in lump or briquette form. Charcoal with relatively low volatile content and correspondingly higher amounts of fixed carbon is desirable for specialized industrial uses. Temperatures somewhat higher than the normal kiln operating temperatures of 850° to 950° F (454°  to 510° C) are required to produce it. The volatiles, when present in proportions greater than about 24 percent, will cause smoking when charcoal is burned and will give product degrade in some areas of recreational use.

 

In a continuous process raw organic material of any kind is passed through the retorts and cooked into marketable products. While some of the biogas is used to fuel its own process, on site gas turbines or steam boilers can be fueled by the same gas. Variable speed drives give the operator total control on product quality by altering the residence time of the feed stock. The operator can also vary the percentage split between the bio-oil and charcoal by changing the temperature.

 

Chemical properties can be precisely determined only with analytical equipment. A rough quality test for volatiles can be made, however, by burning samples of charcoal and observing the absence or extent of smoking. A metallic ring when a piece of charcoal is dropped onto a hard surface provides a further rough test for good quality. Too rapid coaling at high temperature usually results in the formation of crumbly charcoal easily broken into small pieces and fines. The species of wood does not influence the chemical quality of charcoal; the physical properties, however, are influenced by wood density and structure. For example, the low-density woods produce charcoal in greater bulk, while some woods will produce brittle charcoal. In general, the lump charcoal obtained from the medium-dense to dense hardwoods is considered a cleaner product because of less breakage and dusting with handling.

Effective Torrefaction Technology from JF BioCarbon

Basically there are two torrefaction technology in use today, namely the direct heating and indirect heating. Direct heating is torrefaction technology with direct heating by using the unit operation (process equipment), among others, with non-oxygen gas loop with exchanger using a moving bed, drum, vibrating belt, multiple heart furnace or using a low-oxygen gas loop linked to the burner using a tunnel or moving bed.  While the indirect heating included using advanced drying technology and retort heating as did JF BioCarbon.  A number of technology providers are competing to design an effective and efficient process so that meet benefit greatly. The use of indirect heating such as JF BioCarbon uses a vacuum process and operating conditions are easier to control.

Huge market potential, because the excellence of the biomass torrefaction products (torrified wood pellet and briquette), also made ​​a number of technology providers to increase their production capacity. Currently the average manufacturer produces less than 5 tons / hour torrefied wood products. Production capacity to 5 tons / hour is one of the parameters of success of this technology. Torrefied wood products is predicted to replace the wood pellets, because of its superiority, among others, as follows:

-Hydrophobic characteristically, good to be stored for a long time without experiencing degradation of its physical properties
-Moisture content below 3%
-Easy to be crushed or pulverized to coal plant process
-The properties of torrified wood are very homogeneous
-Burned without causing smoke and smell because of all volatile material had been removed during manufacture.
-Ideal for gasification and Fisher-Tropsch process for conversion to chemicals.

-Can be made ​​from many biomass, while wood pellet can be made only from narrow feedstocks.

In addition to wood pellet market is already global oversupply, also encourages the use of better fuel economy in both the torrefied wood briquettes or pellets.

Among a number of technology providers, JF BioCarbon using the process easier, simpler and faster. If the average of the production process torrefied pellets through 10 stages as follows:

a. Pre-Torrefaction

1.Prepare feedstock particle size 

2. Pre-dry feedstock

b. Torrefaction

3. Evaporate Residual Moisture

4. Heat Feedstock to 250-280 C

5. De-polimerize hemicellulose

c. Post-Torrefaction

6. Cool & re-polymerize product

7. Crush to Size

8. Condition

9. Densify (pelletizing)

10. Cool & Screen

 (Adapted from Wood Pellet Association of Canada)

 

So JF BioCarbon production process is shorter, ie :

1-      Prepare feedstock size

2 &3 Pre-dry feedstock & evaporate moisture.. This is all done in one process.

4 & 5- are one combined process

6-       Torrefied is cooled while being moved from reactor to char bin via a cold water cooled jacketed auger system (40 ft. long)

7.  Fine particles ready for pelletizing if necessary.

8.  Pelletizing

9. Cool and Screen

For more details please click here.

The concept of Zero Waste MSW Processing Using Continous Pyrolysis Technology and Biogas System

How did your perspective when looking at the mounting garbage, whether it be problems or challenges that invite the opportunity?

It's no secret that the waste problem has become a common problem in many places, especially in big cities. The challenge is how to make waste processing unit that zero waste and be profitable? Integration of continuous pyrolysis technology and biogas system is the answer on this. With pyrolysis, organic waste, plastics, and tires will produce specific products with high economic value. When the processing of organic waste are the main products produced charcoal, biooil, and syngas. All of them can be used for energy applications. While the plastic is processed then the primary product is syn crude oil whose quality as petroleum. Processing of scrap tires with pyrolysis will produce syn crude oil like in plastic pyrolysis processing, carbon black, syngas and steel wire.

With the sale of the products of pyrolysis, so the activity of MSW processing is not only dependent on the tipping fee, but the majority of the profits derived from the sale of the pyrolysis products. In addition there are two thermal process beside pyrolysis which is used on MSW processing, there are gasification and incineration, but pyrolysis has many advantages over both methods, more details please click here.

In the processing of organic waste with this continuous pyrolysis technology, before the organic waste enter  into the pyrolysis unit, the moisture content of the organic waste need to be reduced to about 10% by using a mechanical device. In this process will produce leachate that rich with organic matter so that the potential for biogas system in anaerobic digestion reactor, so that gas can be produced for power generation. While the byproducts of residual water will be cleaner because the organic components decompose during the formation of biogas, thus safely discharged to the environment and the solid residue will be used as high-quality compost.

Why Use Pyrolysis to MSW Treatment?

The main difference between the pyrolysis, gasification and incineration: the amount of oxygen that is supplied to thermal reactors. Pyrolysis has advantages in producing gas or oil products from waste that can be used as fuel for its process of pyrolysis.

Quantitatively differences between the pyrolysis, gasification and combustion: based on the needs of the air needed during the process, i.e. as follows
-If the amount of air: fuel (AFR, air-fuel ratio) = 0, then the process is called pyrolysis.
-If the AFR <1.5 then the process is called gasification.
-If the AFR> 1.5 then it is called the combustion process

Pyrolysis have a number of advantages are as follows:
-Lower temperature process (400-800 C) so the smaller the investment costs
-Flue-gas emissions below the required threshold.
-All the pyrolysis products have economic value.So that the sustainability of MSW processing is not only dependent on the tipping fee, but rather on the sale of the pyrolysis products.

-Pyrolysis can adjust to the type of feedstock such as pyrolysis of plastic will result in major product syn crude oil, pyrolysis of scrap tires will be produced also syn crude oil, carbon black and syn gas, and so other feedstock. The use according to type of feedstock will increase the economic value of the resulting product significantly. In process aspects this will be considered against the availability of feedstock and selling value of products produced.

Institute of Applied Energy (Tokyo) published in 2004 an analysis of stoker incinerator and pyrolysis plants operating under the same conditions. The analysis revealed that a conventional stoker grate incinerator with a steam turbine has no performance advantage over a pyrolysis plant at any scale.

Temperature Effect in Pyrolysis Process Of Charcoal Quality

Pyrolysis produces biochar, liquids and gases from biomass by heating the biomass in a low/no oxygen environment. The absence of oxygen prevents combustion. The relative yield of products from pyrolysis varies with temperature. Temperatures of 400–500 °C (752–932 °F) produce more char, while temperatures above 700 °C (1,292 °F) favor the yield of liquid and gas fuel components. Pyrolysis occurs more quickly at the higher temperatures, typically requiring seconds instead of hours. Pyrolysis also may be the most cost-effective way of producing electrical energy from biomaterial. Syngas can be burned directly, used as a fuel for gas engines and gas turbines, converted to clean diesel fuel through the Fischer–Tropsch process or potentially used in the production of methanol and hydrogen. Varying process conditions result in differences in product charcoal, gas or oil produced. Pyrolysis has advantages in producing gas or oil products from waste that can be used as fuel for the pyrolysis process itself.

Effect of carbonisation temperature on yield and composition of charcoal

Low carbonization temperatures give a higher yield of charcoal but this charcoal is low grade, is corrosive due to its content of acidic tars, and does not burn with a clean smoke-free flame. Good commercial charcoal should have a fixed carbon content of about 75% and this calls for a final carbonising temperature of around 500°C.

The yield of charcoal also shows some variation with the kind of wood or biomass. For wood there is evidence that the lignin content of the wood has a positive effect on charcoal yield. A high lignin content gives a high yield of charcoal. Therefore, mature wood in sound condition is preferred for charcoal production. Dense wood also tends to give a dense, strong charcoal, which is also desirable. However, very dense woods sometimes produce a friable charcoal because the wood tends to shatter during carbonization. The friability of charcoal increases as carbonization temperature increases and the fixed carbon content increases as the volatile matter content falls. A temperature of 450 to 500°C gives an optimum balance between friability and the desire for a high fixed carbon content.