Performance and potential appraisal of various microalgae as direct combustion fuel

Hong Il Choi, Jeong Seop Lee, Jin Won Choi, Ye Sol Shin, Young Joon Sung, Min Eui Hong, Ho Seok Kwak, Chan Young Kim, Sang Jun Sim

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    79 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    Direct combustion of biomass is considered the most effective and simple means to contribute to CO2 reduction. In this context, the life-cycle potential of microalgal solid fuel, which has been overlooked so far, was comprehensively scrutinized ranging from cultivation to direct combustion. According to the quantitative data, using the raw fuel was confirmed to offer great benefits over the conventional lipid-targeted microalgal fuel systems through exploiting all of the biomass’ energy potential, thereby being able to significantly increase the energy yield from biomass. The solid fuel is shown to exhibit diverse positive aspects owing to its remarkable calorific value, productivity and CO2 fixation ability. The combustion test reveals coal-microalgae co-combustion brings beneficial consequences on combustibility and environmental impacts with no notable thermal efficiency drop. This holistic appraisal shows microalgae patently possess high potential as a direct combustion fuel, even outperforming that of extensively used woody fuels.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)341-349
    Number of pages9
    JournalBioresource technology
    Volume273
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2019 Feb

    Bibliographical note

    Funding Information:
    The authors are grateful to Prof. EonSeon Jun and Assistant Prof. Han Min Woo for kindly providing the microalgal strains. The authors also thank Dr. Won Yang, Dr. Sun Young Choi and Jongrae Kim for thoughtful technical advice. The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the Korea CCS R&D Center (Korea CCS 2020 Project) which was funded by the Korean Government (the Ministry of Science and ICT) in 2018 (Grant No. KCRC-2014M1A8A1049278), the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) (Grant No. NRF-2016R1A2A1A05005465) and the Korea Institute of Energy Technology Evaluation and Planning (KETEP), which was funded by the Korea Government (the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy) (Grant No. 20172010202050).

    Funding Information:
    The authors are grateful to Prof. EonSeon Jun and Assistant Prof. Han Min Woo for kindly providing the microalgal strains. The authors also thank Dr. Won Yang, Dr. Sun Young Choi and Jongrae Kim for thoughtful technical advice. The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the Korea CCS R&D Center (Korea CCS 2020 Project) which was funded by the Korean Government (the Ministry of Science and ICT) in 2018 (Grant No. KCRC-2014M1A8A1049278), the National Research Foundation of Korea ( NRF ) (Grant No. NRF-2016R1A2A1A05005465 ) and the Korea Institute of Energy Technology Evaluation and Planning ( KETEP ), which was funded by the Korea Government (the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy ) (Grant No. 20172010202050 ).

    Keywords

    • Direct combustion
    • Microalgae
    • Negative emissions
    • Solid fuel
    • The holistic analyses

    ASJC Scopus subject areas

    • Bioengineering
    • Environmental Engineering
    • Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment
    • Waste Management and Disposal

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