An overview of preprocessing and pretreatment technologies for biomass

Authors: Tumuluru, Jaya Shankar

Submitted to: Book Chapter
Publication Type: Book / Chapter
Publication Acceptance Date: 11/18/2022
Publication Date: 6/29/2023
Citation: Tumuluru, J. 2023. An overview of preprocessing and pretreatment technologies for biomass. In: Tumuluru, J.S. editor. Densification Impact on Raw, Chemically and Thermally Pretreated Biomass. First Edition. Singapore: World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd. p. 1-14. https://doi.org/10.1142/9781800613799_0001.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1142/9781800613799_0001

Interpretive Summary: The physical properties such as lower bulk density, varying particle size, variable particle sizes, and chemical composition of biomass create feeding, handling, storage, and transportation issues. These physical properties' challenges limit the biorefineries from operating at the designed capacity. Mechanical, chemical, and thermal preprocessing methods help overcome these biomass challenges and create a feedstock that is easy to transport, store and handle. This chapter discusses the thermal, mechanical, and chemical methods that are commonly used to improve biomass's physical properties and chemical composition.

Technical Abstract: The biomasses such as agricultural residues, energy crops, forestresidues, and other wastes usually have irregular shapes and a low-bulk density, resulting in loose harvest formats and a correspondingenergy density lower than coal or other fossil fuels. They also havehigh moisture content, speeding up degradation during storage.Thelow-bulk density of the biomass creates problems, such aslogistics and storage, handling and feeding, transportation costs,a large storage footprint, inefficiencies in processing in the biore-fineries that can increase the downtime, and the overall size ofthe reactor and the conversion equipment. Besides the physicalproperties challenges, other chemical composition and energy con-tent challenges also exist. These challenges limit the biorefineries from operating at their designed capacities. Various chemicals and thermal and mechanical pretreatment and preprocessing methods are used to improve the biomass quality and make it suitable for the biorefineries to operate at their designed capacities. This chapter discusses enhancing biomass quality in terms of physical properties and chemical composition using mechanical, thermal, and chemical preprocessing and pretreatment technologies.