Reactor design and characterization of biochar

Biomass is considered to be a potential for the renewable energy sources in the future. Biomass has some advantages in front of fossil fuels like low sulphur and nitrogen content and it is a way to produce energy without contributing to greenhouse effect. Biochar used as a chemical reducing agent in smelting plants needs specific characteristics such as a fixed carbon content higher than 85%, a volatile mater lower than 10% and a low ash content. The actual industrial processes are not enough to fulfil these conditions so a lab-scale study to adapt an actual industrial process to a system suitable to produce this kind of biochar will be made. A bibliographic research will be done to determine which industrial process will be chosen and what kind of changes will be necessary to introduce to the reactor in order to produce biochar suitable for smelting plants. To determine the reactor dimensions a simulation in MATLAB will be done based on the heat transfer inside the reactor. Finally, a system to recover liquid and gas products will be also designed. Future experiments will determine if this system is suitable for this kind of production or on the contrary, other characteristics or reactor type will be better choice than this one