Biomass to Bio-fuels

Biomass is abundantly available bio-fuel which is considered as carbon neutral i.e,. carbon absorbed from the atmosphere by biomass(plants) and release to the atmosphere when they burned. Hence there is no net addition of carbon added to the atmosphere. 

What is Biomass?

There are different meaning of biomass; Biologically, Biomass can be defined as Carbon based mixture of organic molecules also contains hydrogen and oxygen. Element Nitrogen based on the type of biomass and small quantities of metals and alkali, alkaline earth atoms.

Biomass is wood products, dried vegetation, crop residue, aquatic plants and even garbage. These are all natural materials; uses sun's energy to make food and store in form of chemical energy. This trapped energy is released when we process through specific conversion method. The released energy is called as BioEnergy..

Biomass is renewable source of fuel to produce BioEnergy.

Biomass Conversion process:

- Gasification

- Combustion and Co-firing

- Pyrolysis

- Enzymatic Fermentation

- Gas/liquid Fermentation

- Acid Hydrolysis/Fermentation

- Other

There are three main thermochemical process of biomass to produce BioEnergy.

Combustion: Biomass combustion is burning of biomass organic matter, it is chemically basic oxidation process where carbon, hydrogen and oxygen burns to form carbon dioxide and water with release of large amount of heat. Heat is used to generate power through steam. 

Pyrolysis: Pyrolysis is the thermal decomposition of biomass at elevated temperatures occurring in the absence of oxygen to produce charcoal, bio-oil and gas.

Gasification: Biomass gasification is a incomplete combustion of organic matter resulting in production of combustible gases consisting of Carbon monoxide (CO), Hydrogen (H2) and traces of Methane (CH4). This mixture is called producer gas.

Enzymatic Fermentation: Utilisation enzymes to breakdown the structural carbohydrates (plants matter) into sugars, which are transformed into alcohols, organic acids, ketones and hydrocarbons.

Gas/liquid Fermentation: Producer gas from gasification is subjected to microbial process in which, a mixture of hydrogen, carbon monoxide, and carbon dioxide, are converted into fuel and chemicals by microorganisms. The main products of this fermentation include ethanol, butanol, acetic acid, butyric acid, and methane

Others: Composting of biomass,Instead of, or in addition to, collecting the flammable biogas emitted, the exothermic nature of the composting process can be exploited and the heat produced used, usually using a heat pump