Use of a biofuel obtained from the fast pyrolysis of sugarcane trash in an Otto engine / Uso de biocombustivel da pirolise rapida da palha de cana em um motor de ciclo Otto

AUTOR(ES)
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2007

RESUMO

In September 2002 the state of São Paulo promulgated the Law Nº 11241 by which was codified the gradual elimination of fire as a method to remove trash from the sugar-cane fields before harvestig. Large amounts of sugar-cane trash with an important energy potential will be available as a result of this law. New technologies to harvest and process this biomass need to be developed and/or adapted. Amongst the potential concepts to use the energy contained in sugar-cane trash, fast pyrolysis offers important advantages since high liquid yield, char and syngas can be obtained with this technology. These materials can be used to produce energy or chemicals in power plants or in new bio-refineries. A technical evaluation of using carboxylic acids ethyl esters derived from sugar-cane trash bio-oil, mixed with gasoline in an Otto engine is presented. The sugar-cane trash was ground, dried and further pyrolyzed in the PPR-200 fast pyrolysis plant, owned by Unicamp. The products were: a decanted bio-oil, an aqueous phase, charcoal fines and pyrolitic gases. The carboxylic acids were extracted from the decanted oil and esterified by the Fisher acid catalyzed method, using ethanol. The resulting product was called bioflex. The sugar-cane trash, the bio-oil and the bioflex were characterized to determine their physico-chemical properties. The Lower Heating Value (LHV) of the bio-oil resulted 21,46 MJ/kg. In the case of bioflex, its LHV was 31 MJ/kg. Preliminary tests were performed to evaluate the fuel performance of bioflex /conventional petroleum derived fuel blends. The bioflex was not miscible in diesel and only very low amount (3 vol %) was soluble in gasoline type A. Larger solubility was observed with Brazilian gasoline type C. The blend containing 90% of gasoline type C and 10% of bioflex, herein called G90-B10, presented the biggest interest so was used as fuel in a 2 KVA electric Otto engine-generator. The engine power versus applied load, fuel consumption, etc., when used G90-B10 mixture, gasoline type A and gasoline type C were evaluated and compared. The load applied during the tests consisted of a variable electric resistance with capacity from 200 W to 2000 W. The measurement of the generated electricity was made under different load conditions and under different shaft-engine rotation speed. Results showed that the power generated and the fuel consumed by the engine was similar when using the three fuels. These results confirm the technically viability of 10/90 (bioflex-gasoline C) blends as fuels in Otto engines

ASSUNTO(S)

pyrolysis palha - utilização pirolise otto engine energia da biomassa sugar-cane trash biomassa vegetal cana-de-açucar - colheita motores a gasolina

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