Journal of Fundamentals of Renewable Energy and Applications
Open Access
ISSN: 2090-4541
ISSN: 2090-4541
Janusz A Kozinski and Sonil Nanda
York University, Canada
Posters & Accepted Abstracts: J Fundam Renewable Energy Appl
There is a growing demand for energy, especially from renewable resources, for use in industries, household and transportation. This invited lecture will highlight some of our notable works on the conversion of renewable feed-stocks to carbon-neutral bio-fuels. We have investigated a wide variety of potential feed-stocks for bio-fuel production such as lignocellulosic biomass (residues from agriculture, forestry and energy crops), industrial effluents (fruit processing and dairy industries), municipal solid waste and sewage sludge. Our research on pyrolysis, hydrothermal liquefaction, supercritical water gasification and fermentation of these feed-stocks to process-specific fuel products (e.g., ethanol, butanol, bio-oils and synthesis gas) will be presented in the symposium. The presentation will focus on H2-rich syngas generation through supercritical water gasification of biomass. Hydrogen is an attractive energy carrier which can be used in fuel cells to generate electricity and in other energy-intensive processes due to its high heating value (141.8 MJ/kg). This lecture will highlight some of our promising and highly acclaimed results on diamond anvil cell. Diamond anvil cell is a micro-reactor that can be used to visually observe the behavior of reactant, catalyst and supercritical water during gasification process to provide insights about their reaction chemistry, thermodynamics and phase behavior. Videographic presentation of the hydrothermal gasification and liquefaction of model compounds such as glucose, fructose and benzo(a)pyrene will be made. Nonetheless, our results on batch and continuous modes of subcritical and supercritical water gasification will also be discussed. This presentation will highlight our significant findings on hydrothermal gasification of biomass and its multiplex reaction mechanisms.