Conversion of Wood Waste Biomass into Biochar and Green Hydrogen – a Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) Technology

Loading...
Thumbnail Image
Penn collection
Senior Design Reports (CBE)
Degree type
Discipline
Subject
Biochemical and Biomolecular Engineering
Chemical Engineering
Engineering
Funder
Grant number
License
Copyright date
Distributor
Related resources
Author
Cheon, Sae Joon
Cochrane, Jenesis
Ekobeni, Ericka
Sclafani, Danielle
Contributor
Abstract

Biochar is the solid product resulting from the heating of biomass at high temperatures in an oxygen-deprived environment. Biochar serves as a soil amendment product, and its widespread implementation may improve agricultural yields in areas with high forest wastes and high carbon emissions due to its carbon sequestration properties. This project uses slow pyrolysis at 800 ̊C to convert 100,000 dry metric tons of southern pine wood waste annually into biochar. Because this plant yields green hydrogen as a side product, this plant is located near the Gulf Coast Hydrogen pipeline in Southern Louisiana, an area with 6.35 million metric tons of wood waste. Following a number of separation techniques, the annual production rates for this project are 19,200 metric tons of biochar 3906 metric and H2 . The economic analysis for this project predicted a -$143,845,300 net present value (NPV), a -15.18% return of investment (ROI), and a negative internal rate of return (IRR). Although the project is currently not financially sustainable, there are a number of suggestions in this report for deriving additional economic value, such as designing a singular pyrolysis unit large enough for our feed requirement, rather than using six parallel units.

Advisor
Date Range for Data Collection (Start Date)
Date Range for Data Collection (End Date)
Digital Object Identifier
Series name and number
Publication date
2023-05-25
Volume number
Issue number
Publisher
Publisher DOI
Journal Issue
Comments
Recommended citation
Collection