The low yield and poor fuel properties of bio-oil have made the pyrolysis production process uneconomic and also limited bio-oil usage. Proper manipulation of key pyrolysis variables is paramount in order to produce high-quality bio-oil that requires less upgrading. In this research, the pyrolysis of pig hair was carried out in a fixed-bed reactor using a calcium oxide catalyst derived from calcination of turtle shells. In the pyrolysis process, the influence of three variables—temperature, heating rate and catalyst weight—on two responses—bio-oil yield and its higher heating value (HHV)—were investigated using Response Surface Methodology. A second-order regression-model equation was obtained for each response. The optimum yield of the bio-oil and its HHV were obtained as 51.03% and 21.87 mJ/kg, respectively, at 545oC, 45.17oC/min and 2.504 g of pyrolysis temperature, heating rate and catalyst weight, respectively. The high R2 values of 0.9859 and 0.9527, respectively, obtained for the bio-oil yield and its HHV models using analysis of variance revealed that the models can adequately predict the bio-oil yield and its HHV from the pyrolysis process.
The high volume of green house gases released from petroleum refineries has contributed greatly to global warming. The crude distillation unit of a refinery being an energy-intensive unit generates high volume of greenhouse gases. Unlike solid and liquid pollutants that can easily be handled and treated, gaseous pollutants are difficult to handle once they are generated, hence an effective means of reducing their generation is paramount. Because of the cost penalty placed on defaulters, emission trading scheme has been an effective way of controlling the release of these obnoxious gases into the environment as refiners would seek alternative processing schemes that reduce emissions. The crude distillation unit of the refinery under study was simulated in Aspen Hysys. The unit was designed to process 125,000bpsd of a blend of three Nigerian crudes. Greenhouse gases from the unit were targeted from direct (heating sources) and indirect (electricity usage) respectively. The concept of global warming potential was adopted to estimate the carbon (iv) oxide equivalent of the greenhouse gases from the unit. A methodology to allocate emission quota to a refinery was developed and a carbon fee of $5 per tonne was placed for above- limit emissions. The crude distillation unit was found to have a base generation of 491576.27tonne/yr of carbon (iv) oxide equivalent while it pays $491,576.25per year for above-limit emission. The sensitivity analysis revealed that the gross profit is quite sensitive to carbon fee. Â
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