Energy use of solid biofuels made of Jatropha curcas L. seed cake

Bc. Christina Vlachosová

Master's thesis

Abstract:

Fossil fuels cover a substantial part of the worldwide energy consumption and due to their exhaustion, looking for an alternative resource is becoming a today´s priority. The diploma Thesis deals with energy utilization of waste biomass from the seeds of Jatropha curcas L. In the last decades, the development of the plant has been increasing in trend significantly. Jatropha is planted in many tropical countries due to its high content of oil, which is predominantly used for biodiesel production. During the oil pressing process, huge amount of waste seed cake biomass is produced. The objective of the present Thesis was to evaluate the possibility of utilizing the seed cakes from Jatropha curcas L. in the form of solid biofuels based on determination of physical, chemical and mechanical properties; production of briquettes and pellets; evaluation of combustion and emissions characteristics. The Thesis was divided into two parts. The purpose of theoretical part was to summarize scientific information about biomass, solid biofuels as well as about the energy crop Jatropha curcas L., especially its usage and previous studies focused on waste seed cakes. The purpose of the practical part was to bring assessment of energy utilization of the plant seed cake biomass in different forms of solid biofuel. Analysis showed that in case of initial form of Jatropha seed cakes production of briquettes was not feasible. The dependence between compressive forces, needed for production of quality briquette and moisture content was found by the preliminary compression test. Although the seed cakes in initial form have suitable physical and chemical properties, it is not efficient to burn them in automatic pellet boilers. Despite of the fact, that mechanical durability of pellets was low, the present research concluded that produced pellets are the most promising alternative possibility compared to other forms of solid fuels. Pellet´s combustion process was fluent in automatic pellet boiler and they fulfilled the limitations of CO concentrations as well.

Keywords

seed cake, waste biomass, pellets, briquettes, emissions, standards, combustion

Language used: English

Date on which the thesis was submitted / produced: 22. 4. 2016

Thesis defence

• Supervisor: Ing. Tatiana Ivanova, Ph.D.

Czech University of Life Sciences Prague

Faculty of Tropical AgriSciences

Master programme / field:
Tropical Agriculture / Sustainable Rural Development in the Tropics and Subtropics