Energy and Life Cycle Assessment of Solar Assisted Microwave Pyrolysis of Waste Biomass

Abstract

In this proposed work focused on energy efficient solar assisted pyrolysis for biofuel synthesis from different biomass. In recent days solar-powered microwave assisted pyrolysis in increasing the research attention towards higher energy recovery from the waste biomass. Microwave-assisted pyrolysis has promoted by different researchers due to lower energy consumption, faster heating rate and uniform volumetric heating of feed. Compare to electrical and thermal pyrolysis; microwave assisted pyrolysis in increasing the process efficiency due to higher energy recovery and higher hydrogen production. Thus, Microwave-assisted pyrolysis combined with solar energy increase the economic feasibility of the pyrolysis process. To recover more energy from the waste, one must reduce the input power supply and has to improve the process efficiency. So, this proposed project concentrates on solar-powered microwave pyrolysis which will eliminate the need for input power supply. Concentrator Photo-Voltaic (CPV) systems are most likely to produce a massive amount of energy per rated power and module active area. CPV system produces around 2.5 times higher energy per module active area and around 1.3 times higher energy per rated power. Char and ash obtained from the pyrolysis process will be converted into activated carbon and further sintering at a higher temperature for converting into brick form. This reusable solid activated carbon may decrease the processing time by 50%, and raise the temperature around double the time faster compared to the conventional pyrolysis. Compared to the conventional pyrolysis, it is expected that the liquid fuel may increase by 30% due to the fast heating rate. Pyrolysis oil comprises of different chemical functional groups such as sulphur, carbonyls. The phenolic carboxyls compounds provide potentials simultaneously challenging for commercial usage. The hydrocracking and catalytic cracking are the recent technologies used in current research. The usage of hydrogen and catalyst degradation are the major challenges in current technology. To solve this problem, oxidation with ozone would be used as an efficient way for upgradation of biofuel. The life cycle assessment for the entire process is necessary to determine the carbon feet print to the environment.