The hydrothermal carbonization and torrefaction of rose pulp and chicken manure

The increasing population growth in the world and in our country and the increasing use of fossil fuels, one of the main energy sources used by people, has led humanity to search for alternative energy sources. Humanity has discovered renewable energy sources in this search. One of the renewable energy sources is biomass energy. Biomass is made of organic materials and there are various methods to convert biomass into an energy sources such as hydrothermal carbonization and torefication processes. Hydrothermal carbonization (HTC) is the process of mixing a certain amount of biomass and water in a nitrogen atmospheric environment and keeping it under high temperature and high pressure for a certain period of time to increase the fuel properties of the biomass. Torefication is the process in which biomass is kept in an oxygen-free environment at certain temperatures and for certain periods of time to increase its fuel properties. In the project carried out for this thesis, the wastes were kept in pure water at certain temperatures and pressures in a nitrogen-rich atmosphere for certain periods of time and subjected to hydrothermal carbonization process. The approximate samples were then analyzed and their elemental values were calculated. In this project, it is aimed to increase the energy values of the wastes and recover them. In this study, rose pulp and chicken manure were used as waste biomass considering the amount of production in Isparta in Türkiye. In the study, 3 different temperatures (175°C, 200°C, 225°C), 3 different waiting times (1 hour, 2 hour, 3 hour) and 3 different biomass weights (1 g, 2 g, 5 g) were used for the HTC process. Similarly, torrefaction was carried out at 3 different temperatures (250°C, 275°C, 300°C) and 3 different holding times (30 min, 60 min, 90 min). After both thermochemical treatments, approximate and thermogravimetric analysis of selected samples were performed. As a result of the thermochemical treatments, both the fixed carbon and HHV values of the samples increased with the increase in temperature and waiting time in both HTC and torrefaction processes. However, considering the combustion indices calculated as a result of the TG analysis, it was observed that only the combustion performance of the rose pulp samples was improved with HTC method. In the approximate analysis results, it was seen that the fixed carbon ratios and upper thermal values of the rose pulp samples and chicken manure samples increased compared to the raw sample.