Sustainability in Energy, and Environment Lecture Series

Date and time: July 02, 2019 (Tuesday), 3.00pm

Venue: ChE Seminar Room, OAB

Attendance: All welcome

A Parametric Study of Hydrothermal Carbonization of Waste Biomass

Bangladesh generates tremendous amount of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) daily, with Dhaka generating at least 5340 metric tons per day. Per capita MSW generation is directly dependent upon population and socio-economic status, individuals belonging to the high socio-economic status tends to generate more MSW than those in low socio-economic status. At present, for the majority, Bangladesh practices open and sanitary landfilling of MSW. Bangladesh is a relatively small country with a scarcity of land for landfilling. This situation is expected to exacerbate unless measures are taken to utilize the MSW instead of landfilling. Various MSW valorization pathways exists for converting MSW into value-added products or for generating energy. The pathways include anaerobic digestion, composting, incineration, hydrothermal treatment, pyrolysis, and gasification. Among the valorization pathways, hydrothermal treatment, particularly hydrothermal carbonization, is considered to be most promising for handling MSW due its flexibility of handling high moisture containing feedstock. A parametric study at different reaction conditions was carried out in order to optimize the hydrothermal carbonization process. The altered reaction parameters were temperature, residence time, and solid loading (water percentage). The optimum reaction condition for hydrothermal carbonization was found to be at 275 °C, with a residence time of 20 minutes and a water loading of 90%. At these conditions, biocoal with the highest amount of combustible material and the highest solid yield was obtained.

About the Speaker

Mr. Kazi Aurnob has completed his BSc in Chemical Engineering from The University of Minnesota. During his undergraduate, he has worked as a research assistant to develop product for American Peat Technology, LLC. He was on the Dean’s list for outstanding academic record during his final year and is also a member of Omega Chi Epsilon. Mr. Kazi Aurnob is now pursuing his MSc in Chemical Engineering at BUET. He is working as part of the research project InConSolE in order to identify optimum hydrothermal carbonization conditions to maximize biocoal yield from municipal solid waste. This project is funded by Bangladesh Energy and Power Research Council.

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