FACULTY OF AGRICULTURAL SCIENCE Institute of Agricultural Engineering Conversion ...

136 Pages·2016·3.15 MB·English

by  Suwelack, Kay Uwe

FACULTY OF AGRICULTURAL SCIENCE
Institute of Agricultural Engineering
Conversion Technology and Life Cycle Assessment of Renewable Resources (440f)
Hohenheim University

Prof. Dr. Andrea Kruse
A unified appraisal framework for the assessment of biorefinery technologies:
An approach and first steps to application

Cumulative Dissertation
Submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree
“Doktor der Agrarwissenschaften”
(Dr.sc.agr. / PhD in Agricultural Science)

to the
Faculty of Agricultural Sciences

Presented by
Kay Suwelack

2016
Die vorliegende Arbeit wurde am 01.07.2016 von der Fakultät Agrarwissenschaften der
Universität Hohenheim als „Dissertation zur Erlangung des Grades eines Doktors der
Agrarwissenschaften“ angenommen.

Tag der mündlichen Prüfung: 5. September 2016
Leiter des Promotionskolloquiums: Prof. Dr. Stefan Böttinger
Berichterstatterin, 1. Prüferin: Prof. Dr. Andrea Kruse
Mitberichterstatter. 2. Prüferin: Prof. Dr. Daniela Thrän
3. Prüfer (mündlich): Prof. Dr. Enno Bahrs
Für Lennart, Lina und Karlotta
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to express my deep gratitude to Professor Andrea Kruse, my research supervisor,
for her patient guidance, enthusiastic encouragement and useful critiques for this research
thesis. My grateful thanks further goes to my friend Mr. Dominik Wüst who organized the
laboratory in Hohenheim and my students conducting their experimental work.
I also would like to thank Dr. Joachim Schulze and Dr. Martin Brüchert who kindly backed
this work up at Fraunhofer. Furthermore, I would like to thank my colleagues Gero Becker
and Manuel Bauer (both Hohenheim University) as well as Dr. Diana Freudendahl, Maike
Vollmer, Dr. Carsten Heuer and Dr. Anna Schulte (all Fraunhofer INT) for their fruitful
feedback on my presentation for the oral exam.
I also want to mention the lab technicians of the Institute of Catalysis Research and
Technology (IKFT) at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) for their help in offering
me the resources for analyzing my samples. In addition I wish to acknowledge the valuable
comments from all reviewers who contributed to the peer-review processes of my papers
published.
Finally, my whole family deserves very special thanks providing permanent mental support. I
especially would like to thank my brother-in-law Dr. Thomas Suwelack for doing the final
proof read and my beloved wife Barbara Suwelack for her steady encouragement and
understanding throughout this work.

Kay Suwelack
Bonn in September 2016
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgements .............................................................................................................. iii
Table of contents ................................................................................................................... v
List of figures ...................................................................................................................... viii
List of tables ......................................................................................................................... ix
List of abbreviations ............................................................................................................. x
Abstract ............................................................................................................................... xii
Zusammenfassung ............................................................................................................. xiv
1. General Introduction .................................................................................................. 3
1.1 Introduction .............................................................................................................. 3
1.2 Impacts associated with the non-food use of biomass ........................................... 5
1.2.1 Critical review of approaches for the assessment of biomass conversions systems ...... 7
1.2.2 Special challenges in assessing new (future) technologies ............................................ 9
1.3 Biomass conversion technologies vs. biomass conversion systems ..................... 11
1.3.1 Biomass conversion technologies and routes............................................................... 11
1.3.2 State of the art in hydrothermal carbonization ............................................................ 13
1.4 Conclusions ............................................................................................................. 15
1.4.1 Assessment of biomass conversions systems ................................................................ 15
1.4.2 Hydrothermal Carbonization ....................................................................................... 16
1.4.3 Research objectives ...................................................................................................... 16
1.4.4 Structure of the thesis ................................................................................................... 17
2. An approach to unify the appraisal framework for biomass conversion systems27
2.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................ 28
2.2 Material and methods ............................................................................................ 30
2.2.1 Technology Design Assessment – the data level .......................................................... 31
2.2.2 Life-Cycle-Sustainability-Assessment – the impact level ............................................. 33
2.2.3 Multi-Criteria Based Benchmarking – the decision making level ............................... 39
2.3 Calculation .............................................................................................................. 47
2.4 Results and discussion ............................................................................................ 50
2.5 Conclusions ............................................................................................................. 52
3. Prediction of gaseous, liquid and solid mass yields from hydrothermal
carbonization of biogas digestate by severity parameter ...................................... 61
3.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................ 62
3.2 Materials and Methods .......................................................................................... 64
3.2.1 Materials ...................................................................................................................... 65
3.2.2 Experimental set-up ..................................................................................................... 65
3.2.3 Product processing....................................................................................................... 69
3.2.4 Analytics ....................................................................................................................... 69
3.2.5 Severity parameters and statistics ................................................................................ 69
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3.3 Results and discussion ........................................................................................... 73
3.3.1 Modelling product phase yields and the degree of carbonization ............................... 73
3.3.2 Comparison of the severity patterns ............................................................................ 77
3.3.3 Discussion and sensitivity analysis ............................................................................. 78
3.4 Conclusions ............................................................................................................. 80
4. Hydrothermal carbonization of wheat straw – Prediction of product mass yields
and degree of carbonization by severity parameter ............................................... 87
4.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................ 88
4.2 Materials and Methods .......................................................................................... 89
4.2.1 Materials ..................................................................................................................... 89
4.2.2 Experimental set-up ..................................................................................................... 89
4.2.3 Product processing and analytics ............................................................................... 92
4.2.4 Process severity and statistical analysis ..................................................................... 92
4.3 Results and discussion ........................................................................................... 93
4.3.1 Data and model equations ........................................................................................... 93
4.3.2 Comparison of the severity patterns ............................................................................ 96
4.3.3 Discussion ................................................................................................................... 97
4.4 Conclusions ........................................................................................................... 100
5. Conclusions and Outlook ........................................................................................ 105
Annex ................................................................................................................................. xiii
A. Extension of the test data set (Section 2.3) ............................................................. xiii
B. Raw data (Section 3 and 4) ...................................................................................... xv
C. Curriculum Vitae .................................................................................................... xxi

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LIST OF FIGURES
Fig. 1.1: Crude oil production versus crude oil price – A scatter plot on price elasticity for three
different periods. .......................................................................................................................4
Fig. 1.2: Technology Readiness Level adaption by the European Commission [51]. .....................1 0
Fig. 1.3: Bio-based value chain, biomass conversion systems, biomass conversion technologies
and possible primary and secondary products from biomass conversion. ..........................1 1
Fig. 1.4: Reaction conditions (schematic) of different hydrothermal conversion technologies and
the vapor pressure curve of water. .........................................................................................1 2
Fig. 1.5: Possible applications of HTC hydrochar and their state-of-the-art [112]. ..........................1 5
Fig. 1.6: Interplay and connection of the research papers presented in Section 2-4. ........................1 7
Fig. 2.1: The architecture of the UAF is based on a combination of matured methods, tools and
norms and a tailor-made MCDM method called Multi-Criteria Based Benchmarking. ...3 1
Fig. 2.2: Definitions of possible system boundaries for biomass conversion systems. ....................3 2
Fig. 2.3: Example for an advanced radar plot drawing for biomass conversion system j. ...............4 5
Fig. 2.4: Advanced radar plots (ARP) as MCBB result from the basic test data example. ..............5 0
Fig. 3.1: Temperature profiles of the experimental set-up (duration 360 min). ................................6 6
Fig. 3.2: Box-plots from the spike-analysis for carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen content of the
hydrochar - Run 20 was found to outrange the other elemental composition data. ...........7 5
Fig. 3.3: Logarithmic curve fit according to Eq. 3.4 for the solid (Y) and liquid (Y ) product phase
s ℓ
yields. .......................................................................................................................................7 6
Fig. 3.4: Logarithmic curve fit according to Eq. 3.4 for the gaseous (Y ) product phase yield. ......7 6
g
Fig. 3.5: Logarithmic curve fit according to Eq. 3.4 for the H/C and O/C ratios of the hydrochar. 77
Fig. 3.6: Van-Krevelen Diagram for the HTC of biogas digestate, showing the carbonization
pathway and the order of the corresponding product phase yields (rank order inscription:
ƒ (ƒ; ƒ; ƒ ) from lowest to highest (1-13)). ......................................................................7 8
OC s ℓ g
Fig. 4.1: Logarithmic curve fit according to Eq.4.2 for the solid (Y) product phase yields. ...........9 5
s
Fig. 4.2: Logarithmic curve fit according to Eq.4.2 for the liquid (Y ) product phase yields. .........9 5
ℓ
Fig. 4.3: Logarithmic curve fit according to Eq.4.2 for the gaseous (Y ) product phase yield. .......9 6
g
Fig. 4.4: Logarithmic curve fit according to Eq. 4.2 for the H/C and O/C ratios of the hydrochar. 96
Fig. 4.5: Van-Krevelen Diagram for the HTC of wheat straw, showing the carbonization pathway
and the order of the corresponding product phase yields (rank order inscription: ƒ (ƒ;
OC s
ƒ ; ƒ ) from lowest to highest (1-13)). ...................................................................................9 7
ℓ g
Figure A: Advanced radar plots (ARP) as MCBB result from the extended test data example. ..... xiv

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