Abstract
Hydrothermal processing is a promising technology for being carried out at lower temperatures than pyrolysis and gasification. However, one concern is that HTP typically uses fossil-generated electricity for heating. Therefore, to reduce its environmental impact, concentrated solar energy has been proposed as a heat source. In the present work, hydrothermal liquefaction of agave bagasse was performed in a solar furnace of 25 kW. The experiments were carried out in a solar reactor specifically designed to work at maximum conditions of 220 bar and 500 °C. The experiments were carried out with different operational parameters of temperature (150 and 300 °C), initial pressure (10, 30 and 50 bar), residence time (0 and 60 min), biomass ratio (10 wt%), and average heating rate of 2 °C/min. The main results indicate that acetone improves the oil recovery up to 13% compared to dichloromethane and higher yields of oil were found at initial pressure of 10 bar.
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Acknowledgments
Authors would like to acknowledge the support of R. Morán-Elvira for the operation of SEM, M. L. Ramón-García and P.E. Altuzar-Coello for XRD measurements, M. Baas López for CHONS analysis, and J.J. Quiñones Aguilar for solar furnace maintenance. The authors acknowledge the financial support received from Fondo Sectorial CONACYT-SENERSustentabilidad Energética through Grant 207450, “Centro Mexicano de Innovación en Energía Solar (CeMIE-Sol)”, within strategic project No. 120 “Tecnología solar para obtención de productos con valor agregado mediante procesamiento hidrotermal”, and DGAPA PAPIIT-UNAM IN110118 ``Producción de bioaceites a través del uso de microalgas y energía solar concentrada". H.I. Villafán-Vidales acknowledges the financial support of DGAPA-UNAM through the PASPA program.
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Ayala-Cortés, A., Arcelus-Arrillaga, P., Pacheco-Catalán, D.E. et al. Solar hydrothermal liquefaction: Effect of the operational parameters on the fuels. MRS Advances 7, 24–27 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1557/s43580-021-00204-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1557/s43580-021-00204-z