A New Conversion Process of Waste Biomass to Fuel by Utilizing Latent Heat Storage Materials

2016 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 26550093
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Design and evaluation of sustainable and environmental conscious system
• Research Institution: Tohoku University
• Principal Investigator: Kasai Eiki 東北大学, 環境科学研究科, 教授 (50134044)
• Project Period (FY): 2014-04-01 – 2017-03-31
• Keywords: バイオマスエネルギー / カーボンニュートラル / 炭化 / 粉砕 / 蓄熱媒体 / 合金

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Replacing fossil fuels with biomass energies leads to reduction of CO2 emissions because of its carbon neutral feature. Carbonization is essential to efficently utilize biomass, and therefore a rapid carbonization process using heat storage materials has been proposed and waste heats are focused on as a heat sources of the process. This study aimed at improvement of heat storage materials and verification of the process validity.
Fe-Mn-C alloy gave a large heat storage capacity. Its transformation temperature can be controlled by composition of Mn and C, and therefore it can be applied to a wide temperature range of waste gas. Simultaneous carbonization and pulverization process resulted in rapid heating of biomass and reduction of the time to produce the biomass char compared to conventional carbonization processes. Further, pulverization mechanism of this process was examined by a simulation applying DEM.

Free Research Field

環境工学、素材工学