Burning bio-oil to heat homes more sustainably – Information Centre – Research & Innovation

The huge greater part of households in Europe are heated by organic gas or oil. Switching to different, sustainable fuels – these as bio-oil created from farm and forestry squander – would significantly lessen greenhouse gas emissions and enable to fight global warming.

In Germany by yourself, it has been calculated that altering just 10 % of the country’s previous-fashioned boilers to run on bio-oil could cut carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by around 5.5 million tonnes for every yr.

The aim of the EU-funded RESIDUE2HEAT project was to produce a handy liquid fuel from a wide vary of squander biomass, which could be utilised in smaller-scale boilers to give inexpensive, a lot more sustainable residential heating.

The scientists took a two-stage method. Initially, they searched for techniques to strengthen liquid biofuel manufactured through a system known as quickly pyrolysis. The problem with this variety of fuel – known as quickly pyrolysis bio-oil (FPBO) – is that even the most state-of-the-art residential heating systems are unable to deal with its inconsistent attributes. Consequently, the project group worked to produce a standardised merchandise, irrespective of the uncooked components utilised to make it.

RESIDUE2HEAT then appeared into adapting residential boilers to render them able of burning this fuel.

‘Our novel FPBO-fuelled boiler satisfies most operational and environmental demands in the actual intended ecosystem,’ describes project coordinator Herbert Pfeifer of RWTH Aachen College in Germany and scientific head of the OWI Oel-Waerme-Institut gGmbH, affiliated to the university. ‘And an environmental impression evaluation has verified the good impacts of FPBO heating compared to fossil choices, specifically when it will come to minimizing greenhouse gas emissions (80-ninety four %).’

Redesigning heating for households

Utilizing the quickly pyrolysis system, squander biomass – these as wheat straw, forest resides, bark, elephant grass and clear wood – can be converted into bio-oil. Beginning by modelling how FPBO breaks down and burns, the RESIDUE2HEAT group then utilised the resulting information to tailor the fuel to accommodate residential heating.

By making certain regularity in the fuel’s chemical attributes, these as drinking water articles, they succeeded in strengthening its stability and high-quality.

Up coming, they appeared at adapting and optimising present residential heating systems to help the use of FPBO. A advanced system, this essential the redesign and manufacture of ideal burner parts to optimise the burning of this fuel.

Typical parts utilised in heating systems, these as pumps and fuel nozzles, ended up tested for their FPBO compatibility. Because so minimal was known about FPBO combustion, RESIDUE2HEAT scientists researched the fuel’s behaviour in laboratory-scale burners right before scaling up the system.

Change to biomass

The group has also done a phase-by-phase roll-out plan for the use of FBPO in residential heating, interviewing gas, oil, and pellet heating procedure house owners to ensure a good community acceptance. Importantly, they have revealed that the thought is price tag-aggressive with latest fossil fuels devoid of the need to have for incentives, creating it economically practical.

‘Ashes recovered from the FPBO manufacturing system have wonderful probable for delivering soil nutrients and could as a result be recycled for agricultural applications,’ provides Pfeifer.

The group anticipate that their procedures for producing significant-high-quality FPBO will present a head start out to other exploration programmes, these as the EU-funded SmartCHP project, which aims to develop smaller-scale models for making warmth and electrical energy from biomass.