Design and Experimentation of Biomass Fuel Conversion

Abstract

The state of earth’s depleting fossil fuels has increased the exploration for consistent, dependable alternative energy sources. Biomass, chicken manure specifically, is a suitable substitute that would alleviate the dependency on fossil fuels. According to the United States Census bureau in July 2012 the population of USA is estimated to be 313.9 Million. If we know that the average consumption of chicken per capita is 85 lb. /year and the average chicken weight is 3.5 lb., it can be estimated that the USA consumes about 7,623 million chickens/year. The average chicken produces 2.5 lb. of dry manure throughout the course of a year. This data estimates that 19,058 million lb. (8,644 million kg) of chicken manure is produced per year. Knowing the average calorific value of the chicken manure is 14 MJ/kg, we can conclude that the energy in the chicken manure is equivalent to the energy in 30,386,792 barrels of oil. However, the process of getting energy from chicken manure isn’t as easy as burning it. Due to the high rate of pollutants when chicken manure is burned and the low quality of the fuel in its solid state, other ways of harnessing the energy have been investigated. Pyrolysis is a process in which organic based materials are broken down at high temperatures in the absence of any oxidizer. The produced gases and liquids usually have a higher calorific value and can be used as fuel. This work has been devoted to designing and building a Thermo-gravimetric analyzer, or TGA, in order to analyze the pyrolysis of chicken manure with the use of Carbon Dioxide. Previously collected data shows the conversion rate of the chicken manure changes with time. This confirms that pyrolysis is occurring due to the initially slow conversion rate that increases in the middle of the test. Improving the method of collecting data will propel this project to be a reliable test apparatus for future semesters