The Major Types Of Biomass Energy

Biomass has the fundamental advantage of being a renewable energy source, as against fossil fuels, which are just present in a circumscribed amount on the planet.

FREMONT, CA: Biomass energy is produced from organic matter that can be used directly or in biofuel. It all starts with photosynthesis. The main process plants use to feed.
They can transform solar energy into chemical energy, which they later employ as the prime power resource for their internal processes. This chemical energy can produce the electrical energy our society greatly needs.

How does Biomass Energy work?

Plants stock this chemical energy in the form of carbohydrates, like sugar molecules, and discharge oxygen into the environment as a waste product. When plants die or burn, this chemical energy is released into the environment and can be used as power.

Fossil fuels usually employ the same process, as they are received from biological matter as well, and they discharge energy when they are burned. Nevertheless, the main difference is that fossil fuels have taken millions of years to produce. In contrast, biomass discharges the energy it has stored throughout its lifespan. And this is proportionally shorter than the amount of time necessary for producing fossil fuels.

Getting energy from organic matter greatly relies on the biomass used. The major types are as follows:

1. Natural – this type of biomass is generated without human intervention.
2. Residual – this type comprises the biological remains from farming and different industries. Such as sawdust and wood pellets from the forestry industry, olive pits, cereal straw, almond shells, or corn stover from farming.
3. Following Energy Crops – this is the industrial growth of specific types of plants with the specific goal of utilizing them to obtain energy.

Moreover, the production process differs depending on the biomass material used to get the energy. We will tell you the most important aspects of each of these processes to get an idea regarding the vastness of biomass use.

1. Wood

Wood can produce energy in all its forms, along with logs, sawdust, wood chips, wood pellets, and tree bark. These are the major processes used to gain energy from wood:
Wood Combustion

This is the most extensively used way of transforming wood into energy. The process starts with burning the wood in whichever form. The heat produced by combustion is then utilized to raise the temperature of the water inward a tank or a water boiler, which releases steam. The steam can then be utilized to power a turbine, influencing a generator that can generate electricity.

Wood combustion is commonly used in the forestry industry to get each the energy necessary for the factory. Moreover, the water boilers can offer heat to the building by establishing a piping system.

Cogeneration

Commonly called combined heat and power (CHP), cogeneration is the concurrent production of heat and electricity. While this system needs a substantially higher investment, it can produce more energy than wood combustion. Besides, the CHP system can use lesser wood to produce more energy and heat. A common error is oversizing the system, which usually results in higher costs rather than higher efficiency.

Wood Gasification

This energy production process entails heating the wood to high temperatures in a low-oxygen chamber. Hence, carbon monoxide and hydrogen, which are pyrolysis gases, are discharged from the wood. They can then be combined with oxygen and heat a boiler that distributes the energy.

2. Agricultural Products

This class comprises plant-based materials, both biological residue and energy crops. These are burned, and the heat is utilized to heat a boiler. The steam generated by the boiler is then utilized to power a turbine and a generator, producing electrical energy. The whole system is similar to the one utilized for wood.

The agriculture business can also put its waste to appropriate use by utilizing it to produce part of the energy it requires. This is a crucial aspect because it can mitigate the overall costs of the whole industry.

3. Solid Waste

Garbage can be put to great use by burning it to produce energy. The system is the same as the one explained for wood combustion. Still, there is a major difference. Not all garbage is biomass since quite a large part consists of petroleum-based plastics. Hence, a substantial amount of the energy produced from garbage is not green energy.

The units that gain energy from garbage are known as waste-to-energy plants. While they are highly useful for getting rid of the huge amounts of garbage generated by society, the process can have outstanding detrimental effects on the environment.

4. Biogas

Biogas is generated by microscopic organisms, like bacteria and fungi, as they feed on flat plants and animals as waste products. The gasses created through this process, especially methane gas, can then be utilized to produce energy because they are flammable.

Animal waste generates huge quantities of methane gas, harming the environment. As industrial farming has grown tremendously in the last decades, the portion of methane gas discharged into the atmosphere has increased along with it.

Hence, present laws dictate that farms deposit the animal waste is special containers called digesters. A higher quantity of methane gas can be generated by keeping the waste there for longer. Before releasing it into the environment, it can be directed to an energy production plant through a piping system.

5. Landfills

Landfills are deposit sites for the waste matter concealed in the ground. This approach has been used to dispose of the waste for many years and is still quite common today. The buried waste generates biogas, which can be utilized for a constructive purpose by producing energy from it.

The process entails a piping system introduced into the landfill to release the gas, which is then burned to yield energy and heat. To get a notion about the size of this sector, you should understand that in 2003, as much as 33% of the UK’s renewable energy was produced from landfill gas.

6. Alcohol Fuel

Methanol, propanol, and butanol, the first four aliphatic alcohols, can be used as alternative fuels. Of these four types, ethanol is the most accessible because it can be produced large quantities from fermenting plant-based material.

The starches and the sugars in these plants are fermented, and the ethanol is then distilled. It is the same process utilized to obtain the alcohol that we drink. But we need particular types of plants and an elaborate process to generate alcoholic beverages. Industrial ethanol, conversely, can be produced from any plant that contains starch, sugars, or cellulose.

Industrial ethanol is not fit for human intake, but since it is flammable, it can be used as fuel. Moreover, it is superior to gasoline, which makes it one of the most important alternative fuel options.