Research and development activities in pyrolysis – Contributions from Indian scientific community – A review

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Abstract

Developing countries like India face a lot of problems in the disposal of waste every day, as a result of unregulated and increased disposal rates. This causes an increase in global warming and a severe threat to the environment. Recycling is one of the methods to reduce waste disposal and also produce energy and value added chemicals. Pyrolysis is one of the recycling methods encouraged in the waste recycling, and is in practice in many developed countries. India is still finding a way to effectively reduce the disposal problems. This paper discusses the research and development activities that have taken place in India towards the growth of pyrolysis technology in the last three decades.

Introduction

The rapid increase in the population results in a lot of disposal problems, which will be a great challenge to many countries in the near future [1]. Generally, wastes are categorized into industrial, municipal, hospital and agriculture. While developed countries apply different strategies for an effective waste management, many developing and under developed countries face hurdles in the disposal of different wastes, and recycling them properly to reduce environmental problems. The continuous accumulation of such wastes increases the anthropogenic gases from disposal sites where they are dumped. This, in fact, indirectly increases the global warming potential (GWP) every year [2].

On the other hand, there is always a gap between the energy supply and demand and many developing and under developed countries are unable to make the gap nil as the energy demand increases always with an increase in the population. While developed countries take necessary steps to maintain or increase the energy supply to meet the energy demand, the developing countries and underdeveloped countries struggle to reduce the gap between the energy supply and the demand. It is quite unfortunate that in the most populated and fast growing economies like India, the gap has never been reduced over the last three decades, and they still continue to face the problem. A wide range of disposal options is available at present; they are (i) non-engineered disposal, (ii) sanitary land filling, (iii) composting, (iv) biochemical conversion and (vi) thermo chemical conversion [3], [4], [5]. Among all the options, biochemical and thermochemical conversion methods give energetic materials and value added products. Table 1 gives information on commonly available wastes, which are considered for energetics in India.

Research and development activities particularly in thermochemical and biochemical conversions, have been active in most of the developed countries for several years, but they have been unrealistic in developing and underdeveloped countries till now. The possible route of thermochemical conversion and products from them are illustrated in Fig. 1.

Pyrolysis is one method of thermochemical conversion, in which complex hydrocarbons are cracked down to value added products with the help of heat, with little presence or absence of oxygen [6]. In the pyrolysis process, the organic feed stock is heated in a closed chamber or vessel with an external heat source. The volatile matter that evolves in the vessel is further condensed to get value added products, such as secondary fuels and chemicals that are obtained in the form of liquids, gases and solids. This paper reviews the research works available, related to the research and development activities, and commercialization that have been carried out by the scientific community in India for the last three decades.

Section snippets

Overview of pyrolysis

Pyrolysis process is useful in converting organic substances into value added products in the form of liquid, gas or solid. It requires certain amount of energy to raise the volatile matter present in the substance to gaseous form. The energy required for this may be obtained in any means; generally by combustion of fuel or electrical energy. The organic substance is heated in a closed chamber or vessel. According to the fastness pyrolysis process can be categorized as (i) slow pyrolysis, (ii)

Production of bio oil/pyrolysis oil

India is the 7th largest country in the world spanning 328 million hectares, and great biodiversity. At present, India produces about 450–500 million tons of biomass per year. The scope for harnessing energy from biomass is better, in comparison with other renewable sources, if proper planning and implementation is adopted [10]. Even today, in many houses in rural and tribal areas, biomass residues and wood are utilized for heating through direct combustion in mud stoves [11]. In addition to

Biomedical waste

In the last few years, the disposal of biomedical waste has become an important issue, due to the awareness of environmental pollution. The disposal of hospital waste is a complex issue, as it comprises metals, plastic, rubber, cloth, fabric, human blood etc. Reusing and recycling all the items are not possible, due to their complexity. There are certain items recyclable in hospital waste, such as plastics and metals. In hospital waste management, incineration or pyrolysis is a possible option

Developments in pyrolysis technology

Although many research works were carried out in the last three decades, there was not much development realized till 2000, in fuel and energy production. In recent years, a significant improvement has been seen in the energy industry, where the design and development of pyrolysis reactors for recycling biomass, waste automobile tires and plastics take place. One of the important advantages of pyrolysis is that, any solid organic waste which is not convertible through a process such as

Conclusion

All the researchers suggested that pyrolysis process seems to be a possible option to obtain energy and fuels, and value added chemicals that are derivable from different organic wastes. It gives a possible solution to reduce waste disposal and improve energy supply. On the other hand, there are several issues related to the storage, transportation and utilization of products for further use. The research and development work related to pyrolysis technology is a never ending process as long as

Acknowledgment

The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support for this work by the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) project grant: EP/K036548/1 and FP7 Marie Curie iComFluid project grant: 312261.

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