Virginia Mallow as an energy crop - Current status and energy perspectives

Abstract

Currently, the energy crops are designed as promising renewable energy source. The most popular are Miscanthus Giganteus, willow and Virginia mallow. They are well known as plans, but use as a fuel in energy production still needs more investigations. It results from some disadvantages such as biological degradation, low bulk density and low energy density of Virginia mallow. That is why, pre-treatment processes are required to enhance combustible properties. Thus, this paper demonstrates the current state and energy perspectives of Virginia mallow which can be one of the most promising energy crops in Poland. The study of Virginia mallow focuses on combustion characteristics of torrefied biomass using both experiments and modelling. This energy crop was torrefied using TGA apparatus. The studied biomass was characterized in terms of its ultimate and proximate analysis. After the torrefaction process of Virginia mallow, improvements in energy properties were observed. The impact of torrefaction was confirmed by enhancing fuels properties (higher carbon content, and HHV, lower moisture content, lower ratio O/C). The Chemkin calculations showed changes in composition of the main evolved gaseous products.