Biofuels Production through BiomassPyrolysis —A Technological Review

Author

Mohammad I. Jahirul (m1.islam@qut.edu.au), Mohammad G. Rasul(m.rasul@cqu.edu.au), Ashfaque Ahmed Chowdhury(a.chowdhury@cqu.edu.au) and Nanjappa Ashwath(n.ashwath@cqu.edu.au)
Additional contact information

Energies, 2012, vol. 5, issue 12, pages 4952

Abstract: There has been an enormous amount of research in recent years in the area of thermo-chemical conversion of biomass into bio-fuels (bio-oil, bio-char and bio-gas) through pyrolysis technology due to its several socio-economic advantages as well as the fact it is an efficient conversion method compared to other thermo-chemical conversion technologies. However, this technology is not yet fully developed with respect to its commercial applications. In this study, more than two hundred publications are reviewed, discussed and summarized, with the emphasis being placed on the current status of pyrolysis technology and its potential for commercial applications for bio-fuel production. Aspects of pyrolysis technology such as pyrolysis principles, biomass sources and characteristics, types of pyrolysis, pyrolysis reactor design, pyrolysis products and their characteristics and economics of bio-fuel productionare presented. It is found from this study that conversion of biomass to bio-fuel has to overcome challenges such as understanding the trade-off between the size of the pyrolysis plant and feedstock, improvement of the reliability of pyrolysis reactors and processes to become viable for commercial applications. Further study is required to achieve a better understanding of the economics of biomass pyrolysis for bio-fuel production, as well as resolving issues related to the capabilities of this technology in practical application.

Keywords: biomass pyrolysis; bio-fuel production; biomass feedstock; pyrolysis reactor; economics of pyrolysis process (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations View citations in EconPapers (14) Track citations by RSS feed

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/5/12/4952/pdf (application/pdf)
http://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/5/12/4952/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link:http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:5:y:2012:i:12:p:4952-5001:d:21728

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Prof. Dr. Enrico Sciubba

More articles in Energies from  MDPI, Open Access Journal
Series data maintained by XML Conversion Team (xml-conversion@mdpi.com).

For further details log on website :
http://econpapers.repec.org/scripts/search.pf?kw=biomass%20production