Estimating the higher heating value of forest and agricultural biomass

Abstract

The objectives of study were to investigate the ash content, carbon content and the higher heating value and modelling of HHV of forest and agricultural biomass. Five types of biomass were used for the experiments: sunflower husk pellets, wood pellets, straw and hay briquettes, and forest chips. The investigated biomass properties (their average values) change: for ash content between 1.3% (woods pellets) and 7.3% (hay briquettes), for carbon content between 37.4% (forest chips) and 52.0% (wood pellets), for HHV between 14.8 kJ/kg (forest chips) and 20.1 kJ/kg (sunflower husk pellets). Two mathematical models from literature and model proposed by the authors were used to the HHV calculation. The model proposed by the authors gave the best results in determination of sunflower husk pellets HHV.