HIGH-THROUGHPUT CHARACTERIZATION OF BIOMASS FOR ENERGY
Jan Van den Bulcke1,2,N. Defoirdt1,2, M. Dierick2,3, J. Van Acker1,2
1Ghent University, Department of Forest and Water Management, Gent, Belgium
2 Ghent University,Centre for X-ray Tomography (UGCT), Gent, Belgium
3 Ghent University, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Gent, Belgium
With the inevitable prospect of fossil resource depletion ("peak oil") and global warming world-wide high on the agenda, there is a growing need for sustainable solutions to the energy and climate change issues. These have become major drivers of bioenergy promotion in Flanders, Belgium and the European Union (EU). According to the Biomass Action Plan of the European Commission (EC Biomass 2005), increased autonomy in the energy supply, a more diversified energy mix and significant reductions in the CO2-emissions will be needed to reach the EC’s goals on growth, employment and sustainable development,with an important role for the energetic valorisation of biomass.Thermochemical conversion of biomass offers a largepotential to reach the aforementioned goals on renewable energy andobviouslylignocellulose biomass isgood feedstock for bioenergy production. Proper selection of biomass with increasedyield potential in terms of dry matter production, carbon-storage and energy content is crucial andtherefore detailed quantitative mapping of the properties of biomass feedstock, structurally, chemically as well as energetically, is aimed at. At the Laboratory of Wood Technology advanced characterization techniques are available for this purpose. First, coupled DSC-TGA can be used as a tool to obtain semi-quantitativeinformation on the chemical composition due to the different thermokinetics of the mainconstituents of the material (lignin, cellulose and hemicellulose) and gives also a detailed view on the energetical content of the material.Scanning experiments can be set up in DSC, TGA orcoupled mode, with different carrier or reactive gases, and with heating rates variablyprogrammable from 0.01 up to 30°C/min.Second a method is developed for using a short-wave infrared signals to obtain chemical information on cellulose and lignin composition of biomass in a fast and quantitative way. Third, structuralproperties of the feedstock on different spatial scales are acquired using the multi-resolution X-ray tomography setup developed at UGCT, the Ghent University Centre for X-ray Tomography.The system offers a large range of operation freedom, all combined in versatile acquisition routines (standard or fast scanning, tiling, helix, etc). Simultaneously with 3D structural information, (micro)densitometrical is obtained as well. Combining all aforementioned techniques, quantitative characteristicsof the feedstock are obtained in a high-throughput way for optimization of biomass for bioenergy.