Speaker
Level for award<br> (Hons, MSc, <br> PhD)?
PhD
Would you like to <br> submit a short paper <br> for the Conference <br> Proceedings (Yes / No)?
Yes
Apply to be<br> consider for a student <br> award (Yes / No)?
yes
Main supervisor (name and email)<br>and his / her institution
Prof. E.L Meyer,
e-mail: emeyer@ufh.ac.za
University of Fort Hare, Institute of Technology
Abstract content <br> (Max 300 words)
Biomass is one of the main renewable energy sources and coupled with carbon diode adsorbent material such as calcium oxide sorbent it increases the biomass conversion efficiency during gasification. Kinetic study of materials is vital to the assessment of parameters including the feasibility, design, and scaling of industrial biomass conversion applications. This study aims to investigate the thermal degradation behavior of thermochemical conversion of biomass/sorbents blends in order to choose the ratio that result in higher conversion efficiency during gasification. Thermal stability is the stability of material to resist change in physical shape as its temperature change. Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) was employed to determine the thermal stability and kinetics of biomass and sorbent mixtures of pine wood, calcium oxide (CaO) and magnesium oxide (MgO), which will ultimately determine the gasification characteristics of the blends. A mixture of 75% pine wood and 12.5% CaO and 12.5% MgO resulted in the highest thermal stability compared to others. For this reason this mixture was found to be the one suitable for gasification. The thermal analyses results obtained for the different blends will be presented and discussed in detail in the final paper.
