TY - JOUR
T1 - Simulation studies on microwave-assisted pyrolysis of biomass for bioenergy production with special attention on waveguide number and location
AU - Mohd Mokhta, Zafri
AU - Ong, Mei Yin
AU - Salman, Bello
AU - Nomanbhay, Saifuddin
AU - Salleh, Siti Fatihah
AU - Chew, Kit Wayne
AU - Show, Pau Loke
AU - Chen, Wei Hsin
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors (M.Y.O and S.N) would like to acknowledge UNITEN for the research facilities provided. This work was funded by TNB Seed Fund ( U-TR-RD-18-11 ), Malaysia that managed by UNITEN R&D Sdn Bhd. A note of appreciation to iRMC UNITEN for the financial support through publication fund BOLD 2025 ( RJO10436494 ), Malaysia. Besides, the author (W.H.C) would like to acknowledge the financial support of the Ministry of Science and Technology , Taiwan, R.O.C., under the contracts MOST 106-2923-E-006-002-MY3 and MOST 108-3116-F-006-007-CC1 , Taiwan for this research. This research is also supported in part by Higher Education Sprout Project, Ministry of Education to the Headquarters of University Advancement at National Cheng Kung University (NCKU), Taiwan.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 Elsevier Ltd
PY - 2020/1/1
Y1 - 2020/1/1
N2 - The society's concern has moved toward sustainability nowadays and hence, the conversion of biomass into biofuels, through pyrolysis process, is one of the current research trends. Green processing technologies, like microwave heating, has been suggested to replace the conventional heating for biomass conversion as it provides energy-efficient heating and reduces time consumption. In this work, COMSOL Multiphysics software was used to study the effects of the waveguide position (bottom-fed vs side-fed) and unit (single-fed vs double-fed) on the electromagnetic field and heat distribution profile within the sample. Based on the results, the double-fed microwave can achieve higher maximum temperature (462 °C) at the same simulation time, followed by the single bottom-fed reactor (404 °C). An extension to the investigated work with more than two waveguides has shown that it will neither improve the electric field distribution nor increase the maximum temperature. This work concludes that both the position and unit of the waveguide are highly influential factors in determining the quality and speed of the biomass heating process. The double-fed microwave is the most suitable design to accelerate the pyrolysis process. The assumption of this simulation study is further validated as there is only ∼5% difference between simulations and experiments.
AB - The society's concern has moved toward sustainability nowadays and hence, the conversion of biomass into biofuels, through pyrolysis process, is one of the current research trends. Green processing technologies, like microwave heating, has been suggested to replace the conventional heating for biomass conversion as it provides energy-efficient heating and reduces time consumption. In this work, COMSOL Multiphysics software was used to study the effects of the waveguide position (bottom-fed vs side-fed) and unit (single-fed vs double-fed) on the electromagnetic field and heat distribution profile within the sample. Based on the results, the double-fed microwave can achieve higher maximum temperature (462 °C) at the same simulation time, followed by the single bottom-fed reactor (404 °C). An extension to the investigated work with more than two waveguides has shown that it will neither improve the electric field distribution nor increase the maximum temperature. This work concludes that both the position and unit of the waveguide are highly influential factors in determining the quality and speed of the biomass heating process. The double-fed microwave is the most suitable design to accelerate the pyrolysis process. The assumption of this simulation study is further validated as there is only ∼5% difference between simulations and experiments.
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U2 - 10.1016/j.energy.2019.116474
DO - 10.1016/j.energy.2019.116474
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85075469230
VL - 190
JO - Energy
JF - Energy
SN - 0360-5442
M1 - 116474
ER -