Agricultural Waste Management by Hydrothermal Carbonization

Abstract

There has been a huge emphasis on converting waste into energy in developing countries like India since a couple of decades now. Agriculture is a huge industry in India and produces huge amount of agricultural waste which goes around 350 million tons every year.  Out of this huge weight of waste more than 40 million tons is sugarcane bagasse. Only a small percentage of this waste is collected and out of that, less than 20% gets advanced treatments like incineration, pyrolysis etc. and the rest of it ends up in landfills. In this study Hydrothermal Carbonization of bagasse is carried out in order to raise its carbon content and achieve a higher calorific value. The waste after undergoing the HTC is called hydrochar and mostly resembles the properties of lignite coal. A number of tests are performed on the feedstock at 200 ° C and 220 ° C for three reaction periods viz. 2, 4 and 6 hours. The yield of the char is found to decreases with increase in temperature and retention time whereas the Carbon percentage shows a positive trend and goes as high as 69.1 % at 220° C with Calorific value as 24.44 MJ/kg at 6 hours reaction period.