Environmental and economic assessment of crop residue competitive utilization for biochar, briquette fuel and combined heat and power generation

Ji, Chunying; Cheng, Kun; Nayak, Dali Rani; Pan, Genxing

doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2018.05.026

Cited by 83 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 24 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…The stabilized carbon in biochar led to the negative contribution of the process of biochar land application. This result is in keeping with the other findings of the LCA studies (Mohammadi et al, 2016a;Brassard et al, 2018;Ji et al, 2018) which have found the carbon stored in biochar contributed to between 20 % and 50 % of the abatement of carbon footprint.…”

Section: Contribution Analysissupporting

confidence: 92%

“…In this study, due to lack of data, the biochar produced from digested sludge was assumed to have the same carbon as biochar from paper mill sludge. Sludge biochar was considered to have a carbon content of 50 % (Van Zwieten et al, 2010), of which 80 % is considered to remain in the soil after the time horizon of 100 years (Lehmann and Joseph, 2015;Sparrevik et al, 2013).…”

Section: Inventory Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Life cycle assessment of combination of anaerobic digestion and pyrolysis: focusing on different options for biogas use

et al. 2019

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract. The combination of anaerobic digestion and pyrolysis technologies could be a novel energy-biochar production system to maximize energy and nutrient recovery from pulp and paper mill sludge. Herein, the life-cycle energy production and emissions reduction of sludge treatment from a typical pulp and paper mill were investigated, in which alternative uses of biogas for industrial or household application, in different regions of the world, were assessed. The three scenarios considered for different end-uses of biogas are: (A) biogas for vehicle fuel in the transportation sector in Sweden, (B) biogas for heat and electricity in the power sector in Brazil, and (C) biogas for cooking in households in China. The results of Environmental Life-Cycle Assessment (E-LCA) show that for all these three scenarios, the use of biogas and pyrolysis gas contributes most to emissions mitigation, while the dewatering and drying processes carried out on the sludge, contribute the most to the environmental emissions. Addition of biochar to the soil, contributes significantly to a reduction in global warming by sequestering carbon in the soil. Compared to scenarios B and C, Scenario A, in which biogas substitutes gasoline in transportation, and heat from combusted pyrolysis gases is used for district heating in Sweden, demonstrates the highest environmental performance for all the evaluated impact categories.

show abstract

Section: Contribution Analysissupporting

confidence: 92%

Section: Inventory Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

Life cycle assessment of combination of anaerobic digestion and pyrolysis: focusing on different options for biogas use

et al. 2019

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…As a by-product of biomass pyrolysis, syngas contained CH 4 , H 2 , and CO with a heat value ranging from 2 to 12 MJ/kg (Crombie & Mašek, 2014), which indicated a big potential to alternate fossil fuel. In a previous study of LCA for biochar production based on a survey of business scale factory, biochar manufacturing process induced the GHG emissions of 293.4 kg CO 2 -eq t −1 biochar on average, while a net carbon sink reached 678 kg CO 2 -eq t −1 biochar in case biogas was recycled for electricity generation (Ji, Cheng, Nayak, & Pan, 2018). With Scenario A not considering SOC change and syngas recycling, the CFs under BSA were even higher than that without biochar addition, which was because the direct GHG emission reduction was greatly overshadowed by the energy cost in biochar manufacture.…”

Section: F I G U R E 2 Contributions Of Individualmentioning

confidence: 99%

Greenhouse gas mitigation potential in crop production with biochar soil amendment—a carbon footprint assessment for cross‐site field experiments from China

Cheng

et al. 2018

GCB Bioenergy

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Biochar soil amendment (BSA) had been advocated as a promising approach to mitigate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in agriculture. However, the net GHG mitigation potential of BSA remained unquantified with regard to the manufacturing process and field application. Carbon footprint (CF) was employed to assess the mitigating potential of BSA by estimating all the direct and indirect GHG emissions in the full life cycles of crop production including production and field application of biochar. Data were obtained from 7 sites (4 sites for paddy rice production and 3 sites for maize production) under a single BSA at 20 t/ha−1 across mainland China. Considering soil organic carbon (SOC) sequestration and GHG emission reduction from syngas recycling, BSA reduced the CFs by 20.37–41.29 t carbon dioxide equivalent ha−1 (CO2‐eq ha−1) and 28.58–39.49 t CO2‐eq ha−1 for paddy rice and maize production, respectively, compared to no biochar application. Without considering SOC sequestration and syngas recycling, the net CF change by BSA was in a range of −25.06 to 9.82 t CO2‐eq ha−1 and −20.07 to 5.95 t CO2‐eq ha−1 for paddy rice and maize production, respectively, over no biochar application. As the largest contributors among the others, syngas recycling in the process of biochar manufacture contributed by 47% to total CF reductions under BSA for rice cultivation while SOC sequestration contributed by 57% for maize cultivation. There was a large variability of the CF reductions across the studied sites whether in paddy rice or maize production, due likely to the difference in GHG emission reductions and SOC increments under BSA across the sites. This study emphasized that SOC sequestration should be taken into account the CF calculation of BSA. Improved biochar manufacturing technique could achieve a remarkable carbon sink by recycling the biogas for traditional fossil‐fuel replacement.

show abstract

“…Assuming 1.34 billion people in India in 2018 [18] and that one household comprises 10 people, as many as ~8.4 million households use dung cake for energy production. Although the torrefaction process requires some energy, it is also the most promising technology for organic waste treatment for its highest greenhouse gas mitigation potential [19]. The produced biocoal, especially when pelletized, poses a lower environmental risk during transport, storage, and combustion, in addition to lowering the risks of sanitary and aquatic pollution [20,21].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Waste to Carbon: Biocoal from Elephant Dung as New Cooking Fuel

et al. 2019

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The paper presents, for the first time, the results of fuel characteristics of biochars from torrefaction (a.k.a., roasting or low-temperature pyrolysis) of elephant dung (manure). Elephant dung could be processed and valorized by torrefaction to produce fuel with improved qualities for cooking. The work aimed to examine the possibility of using torrefaction to (1) valorize elephant waste and to (2) determine the impact of technological parameters (temperature and duration of the torrefaction process) on the waste conversion rate and fuel properties of resulting biochar (biocoal). In addition, the influence of temperature on the kinetics of the torrefaction and its energy consumption was examined. The lab-scale experiment was based on the production of biocoals at six temperatures (200–300 °C; 20 °C interval) and three process durations of the torrefaction (20, 40, 60 min). The generated biocoals were characterized in terms of moisture content, organic matter, ash, and higher heating values. In addition, thermogravimetric and differential scanning calorimetry analyses were also used for process kinetics assessment. The results show that torrefaction is a feasible method for elephant dung valorization and it could be used as fuel. The process temperature ranging from 200 to 260 °C did not affect the key fuel properties (high heating value, HHV, HHVdaf, regardless of the process duration), i.e., important practical information for proposed low-tech applications. However, the higher heating values of the biocoal decreased above 260 °C. Further research is needed regarding the torrefaction of elephant dung focused on scaling up, techno-economic analyses, and the possibility of improving access to reliable energy sources in rural areas.

show abstract

Environmental and economic assessment of crop residue competitive utilization for biochar, briquette fuel and combined heat and power generation

Cited by 83 publications

References 24 publications

Life cycle assessment of combination of anaerobic digestion and pyrolysis: focusing on different options for biogas use

Life cycle assessment of combination of anaerobic digestion and pyrolysis: focusing on different options for biogas use

Greenhouse gas mitigation potential in crop production with biochar soil amendment—a carbon footprint assessment for cross‐site field experiments from China

Waste to Carbon: Biocoal from Elephant Dung as New Cooking Fuel

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About