Technological advancements in the areas of biomass thermal processing
Different methods are used to treat sanitary product waste using technologies like incineration, and chemical and mechanical disintegration methods together with mobile incinerators. However, they are unable to degrade or completely destroy the used waste. The existing methods have some drawbacks in terms of high emissions, incomplete combustion, high tar, and particulate matter emissions. Most recent research studies deal with the effective utilization of sanitary products based on medical waste via gasification technology.
To tackle this problem, the research team implemented co-gasification of used wet products with sawdust biomass in forced-type downdraft gasifiers in the Laboratory of Energy Technology at Åbo Akademi University. The generated gas can be used for thermal applications and the higher moisture content can be easily treated by co-gasification with biomass. The obtained gas was able to generate flame temperature above 1000°C suitable for a wide range of thermal applications.
The laboratory has utilities for Hydrothermal Processing of various kinds of organic streams. Some of the research conducted in this laboratory is Supercritical Water Gasification and Hydrothermal Carbonization. The research team at Åbo Akademi University and the visiting research team from IIT-Bombay are contributing to the lab by setting up new facilities. The purpose of the new setup is to widen the scope of the tests to perform Hydrothermal Liquefaction and Gas-to-Gas reactions to produce fuels like methane from CO2.
Currently, the research team is also working on a novel design of a premixed combustor that can generate large swirls with exhaust gas recirculation ability and generate low emissions as the CPCB norms (central pollution control board norms).
Technological Advancements in the Areas of Biomass Thermal Processing: A collaboration between Åbo Akademi University and the Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay is seed-funded as part of the India Pilot initiative from the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture. Aalto is coordinating the India Pilot Network FICORE (Finnish Indian Consortia for Research and Education) which involves 38 higher education institutions from Finland and India.