Category Archives: BIOMASS NOW — SUSTAINABLE GROWTH AND USE

What is artemia?

Artemia or brine shrimp belongs to the animal kingdom, phylum of arthropoda , subphylum of crustacean, class of branchiopoda, order of anostraca, family of artemidae and genus of artemia. Linnaeus (1758) and Leach (1819) called it "Cancer salinus" and "Artemia salina”, respectively. The latter name is because of the effect of salinity on morphological growth and development of artemia. Two species of artemia in Iran are: Artemia urmiana and

© 2013 Zarei, licensee InTech. This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons. org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Artemia parthenogenetica. The first is native of Urmia lake and the second was observed in 12 regions of artemia habitats in Iran.

Artemia spreads in tropical and sub tropical regions in saline environments of the world, and over 500 artemia regions are discovered around the globe. Nine species of artemia were recognized in these regions.

More than two million kilograms of dried cysts of artemia with 0.4mm diameter are transacted in world markets every year. It is used as an aquaculture feed for hatched naplius. Uniformity of cysts and embryos with diapose has made artemia a unique source of aquaculture feeds. Artemia cysts can spread by wind and migratory birds.

Artemia contains 40-60% crude protein (dry matter basis) [11] .

Growth analysis of rice varieties

Most climate change studies benefit from crop models. Crop simulation models could provide an alternative, less time-consuming and inexpensive means of determining the optimum crop N requirements under management nitrogen conditions. The model ORYZA2000, which simulates the growth and development of rice under conditions of potential production, water and nitrogen limitations, Results of growth indices analysis of rice varieties "Figure 8" showed that breed varieties (Khazar, Hybrid and Gohar) higher growth indices rather than Hashemi local varieties (Hashemi and Alikazemi). Azarpour et al. [3] with study Evaluation of the ORYZA2000 model of rice cultivars in Guilan climate condition showed that the model ORYZA2000 can satisfactorily in Simulates processes of growth and development and grain yield of rice cultivars under weather conditions of Guilan. Therefore validated ORYZA2000 model can apply to research purposes for rice cultivars under weather conditions of Guilan.

Item

Yield

Input

energy

Output Energy energy Ratio

Energy Energy intensity productivity

Net

energy

gain

Water and energy productivity

Paddy yield

1

Input energy

0.91**

1

Output energy

0.99**

0.91**

1

Energy ratio

0.99**

0.86**

0.99**

1

Energy intensity

-0.97**

-0.90**

-0.97**

-0.97**

1

Energy productivity

0.98**

0.84**

0.98**

0.99**

-0.96**

1

Net energy gain

0.99**

0.89**

0.99**

0.99**

-0.97**

0.99**

1

Water and energy productivity

0.99**

0.87**

0.99**

0.99**

-0.97**

0.99**

0.99**

1

Straw yield

1

Input energy

0.92**

1

Output energy

0.99**

0.92**

1

Energy ratio

0.99**

0.87**

0.99**

1

Energy intensity

-0.96**

-0.83**

-0.96**

-0.96**

1

Energy productivity

0.99**

0.88**

0.99**

0.99**

-0.96**

1

Net energy gain

0.99**

0.90**

0.99**

0.99**

-0.96**

0.99**

1

Water and energy productivity

0.99**

0.87**

0.99**

0.99**

-0.97**

0.99**

0.99**

1

Husk yield

1

Input energy

0.92**

1

Output energy

0.99**

0.92**

1

Energy ratio

0.99**

0.87**

0.99**

1

Energy intensity

-0.96**

-0.88**

-0.96**

-0.96**

1

Energy productivity

0.92**

0.77**

0.92**

0.95**

-0.94**

1

Net energy gain

0.93**

0.71**

0.93**

0.96**

-0.89**

0.93**

1

Water and energy productivity

0.95**

0.84**

0.95**

0.96**

-0.93**

0.96**

0.92**

1

Biomass yield

1

Input energy

0.92**

1

Output energy

0.99**

0.92**

1

Energy ratio

0.99**

0.87**

0.99**

1

Energy intensity

-0.96**

-0.89**

-0.96**

-0.97**

1

Energy productivity

0.99**

0.97**

0.99**

0.99**

-0.97**

1

Net energy gain

0.99**

0.91**

0.99**

0.99**

-0.96**

0.99**

1

Water and energy productivity

0.99**

0.87**

0.99**

0.99**

-0.97**

0.99**

0.99**

1

**and*respectively significant in 1% and 5% area

Table 17. Correlation of energy indices for rice production

Figure 8. Simulation and measured of biomass of leaves (o), stem (◊), panicles (▲), and total aboveground biomass (■)

Is there enough biomass to replace oil?

There is a tendency to believe that there is no enough biomass in the world to replace fossil fuels that nowadays fulfill our energetic necessities. Taking into account that in the planet every year about 1015 kg of cellulose are naturally recycled, we can do a simple calculation to better understand the real potential of biomass in a hypothetical scenario where we can transform this cellulose material into second generation ethanol.

That huge amount of cellulose is understood that is produced in forests, seas, rivers and crops all around the planet. In this calculation it is not considered the economic feasibility of getting that cellulose; nevertheless it can illuminate a possible future scenario.

In Table 2 it is shown a calculation of the crude necessities for 2035

Talking in terms of volume may allow us to understand the ethanol potential production from cellulose, but it does not explain the energetic issues concerning to both energy carriers when being compared. Ethanol is a fuel that possesses less calorific energy per kilogram than crude oil. If we want to calculate the amount of cellulosic fuel ethanol needed to replace oil it is necessary to take a look at the equivalences.

CRUDE OIL

CELLULOSIC ETHANOL

Conversion

Liters

Crude

L crude/day

Liters

Kg

Enzymatic

to ethanol

ethanol/year

necessities

2035

crude

cellulose

cellulose

(0,45kg

(ethanol

mb/d

(1 bbl. Crude oil/year

recycled/ hydrolysis

ethanol/kg

density

(data OPEC)

=158,98 liters) (2035)

year

(Yield~70%) glucose)

0,789Kg/l)

110

1,75×1010

6,38×1012

1×1015

7×1014

3,15×1014

3,99×1014

Table 2. The volume of crude oil needs projected to 2035 vs. the potential cellulosic ethanol from cellulose annual production on Earth. Bold numbers show that the cellulosic ethanol potential volume is 100 times more than the oil necessities.

Crude Oil calorific value is about 40,000 MJ/Kg., while fuel ethanol’s calorific value is about 28,800 MJ/Kg. Then, we can consider that one Kg. of ethanol is equivalent to 0.72 Kg of crude oil. In other words, crude oil’s calorific power is about 1.4 times higher than fuel ethanol.

In Table 2, it is important to notice that the calculation intends to show that in nature there is enough cellulose to fulfill the necessities of energy to replace oil (at least in theory), but not the energy contained in both fuels; the cellulosic ethanol production from such a huge amount of cellulose may overwhelm in two orders of magnitude the figure of the crude oil requirements by 2035.

As a resulting corollary of this analysis, it is possible to infer that the need of cellulose produced naturally on Earth in order to replace crude oil may be only 1% of its total weight. However, it still represents an immense amount of cellulose to be collected and technologically processed in an efficient and financially feasible way (i. e. ~10 billion MT of pure cellulose/year).

In this scenario, the easiest and more efficient way to start producing second generation ethanol is by utilizing the residual lignocellulosic feedstocks such as by-products from agriculture or industrial activities.

In this analysis, we have taken into account only cellulose—a glucose polymer—to be converted into fuel ethanol by alcoholic fermentation. Nonetheless, most of cellulose in nature is associated with hemicellulose and lignin. Hemicellulose is mainly composed by pentoses such as xylose and arabinose, while lignin is composed mainly by aromatic compounds.

Linear correlation between BMP and organic components

VS is measured by burning dried materials for at least 2 hours at 525 °C, where the residues are defined as ash and the volatile fraction as VS. As each VS component has different stoichiometric methane potentials (TBMP) and different digestibility, knowing the composition of the VS component could be used to assess BMP alternatively instead of performing a fermentation test. Table 3 presents the TBMP of each organic component, where it shows that lipid and lignin is only preferable in respect to TBMP.

Whereas stoichiometric methane potential of each organic component is known relatively well, BD of it in animal slurry is poorly researched except VFA and Lignin. VFA is the intermediate during the procedure of digestion and the presence of VFA in animal slurry

indicates the previous occurrence of hydrolysis. As hydrolysis decides degradation rate, we may hypothesise that the concentration of VFA in animal slurry may significantly correlate with digestibility, and that can further be correlated to BMP. For the lignin, Triolo et al. [10] confirmed that BD is significantly related to lignin concentration. Using the VFA results from the animal slurry used as independent variables against BMP, a reasonable correlation between VFA concentration and BMP was found (Figure 8). Furthermore, a fine correlation between lignin and BMP was also found.

Formula

TBMP(CH4 L z1 VS)

VFA ( mainly acetic acid )

C2H4O2

0.373

Protein

C5H7O2N

0.496

VSeD (Carbohydrate)

C6H10O5

0.415

Lipid

C57H104O6

1.014

Lignin

C10H13O3

0.727

Table 3. Stoichiometric methane potential (TBMP) of each organic component

Figure 8. Relationship between VFA concentration (% of VS)(left) and BMP, and Lignin concentration (% of VS) and BMP (right) : as regression line for lignin (y = -12.804x + 410.4); for VFA (y = 4.972x + 167.6).

Statistical analysis showed that BMP significantly correlated with VFA, lignin and celluloses, though the correlation level of cellulose to BMP was quite weak. (p<0.05). On the other hand, it was not possible to find any correlation from other protein, hemicellulose, lipid, etc. The result of a simple linear regression test between BMP and organic components is given in Table 4, only showing significant models. Furthermore, multiple regression tests were performed using the significant variables, but excluding cellulose, since the model was not improved significantly including cellulose.

materials (10, 37-43). Therefore we tested the precision of the algorithms obtained to test if the model could be used to predict BMP well enough.

Variable

R2

p

RRMSE (%)

Algorithms

Lignin

0.698

<0.001

17.1

BMP = -12.804*lignin+410.4

VFA

0.701

<0.001

17.0

BMP = 4.972*VFA+167.6

Cellulose

0.249

<0.05

26.9

BMP = -3.574*cellulose +336.4

Lignin and VFA

0.766

<0.001

11.8

BMP = -7.807*lignin+3.057*VFA+295.5

Table 4. Summary of statistics results, algorithm obtained for BMP.

The precision of the model was evaluated by employing the relative root mean square error (RRMSE), which represents relative errors. As can be seen in Table 4, relative errors of the BMP model were similar for lignin and VFA, being 17% approximately, while relative error decreased to 11.8% when both of the variables were used for multiple regression tests.

Figure 9. Measured BMP versus predicted BMP and the linear trend using the algorithm (BMP (CH4 NL Kg VS-1) = 295.5 + 3.057*VFA(% of lignin)-7.807*lignin(% of lignin)

Measured BMP versus predicted BMP using the model from multiple linear regression tests is plotted in figure 9, where it shows a good linear correlation. The slope of the best regression line and linear trend obtained was also very similar. The results indicate that the model predicted by cellulose is not preferable, whereas the BMP model using VFA and lignin could be useful for BMP assessment instead of time demanding fermentation tests.

Opportunities and challenges

New products from lignocellulosic feedstock including new adhesives, biodegradable plastics, degradable surfactants, and various plastics and polymers could also be derived through the unique biotechnologies. The products with desirable properties that are not easily matched by petrochemical processing are particularly promising targets. Therefore, less price pressure would exist initially for such new products. However, to have a substantial impact on petroleum consumption, it is necessary to ensure that large markets have to be eventually resulted [20].

Even today, the potential of microorganisms for the production of bulk chemicals is far from being fully exploited. The cost of feedstocks still remains one of the crucial points if biotechnological processes are to succeed. The transition of industrial chemical production from petrochemical to biomass feedstock faces real hurdles. Biorefinery processes do not require the high pressures and temperatures compared with most non-biological chemical processes, thus have the potential to reduce costs. However, current non-biological chemical processes (often continuous, and well integrated) for production of commodity chemicals have become highly efficient by evolved through considerable investment. Therefore biorefinery processes for production of commodity chemicals must rapidly approach similar levels of efficiency and productivity. Nevertheless, available technologies, economic opportunities, and environmental imperatives make the use of lignocellulosic feedstock and biorefinery for industrial chemical production not only feasible but highly attractive from multiple perspectives [88].

Simple criteria have been devised to allow rapid screening of potential chemicals and materials from lignocellulosic feedstock for their economic merit. We now need to identify products that have economic potential and improve the technology to a point where these technologies can be applied in a cost-effective way [20].

The joint distillation system at Zhejiang University

Based on the operation experiences gained with the KDL5 molecular distillation apparatus, a larger-scale joint reduced pressure and molecular distillation set-up was established in the State Key Laboratory of Clean Energy Utilization, Zhejiang University. The flow diagram of this joint distillation system is illustrated in Fig. 5. The processing capacities of the reduced pressure distillation and molecular distillation units were both 8-10 kg/h, and they could be run at temperatures up to 300 °C and pressures down to 50 Pa. The reduced pressure distillation unit could be operated separately to remove the water from bio-oil as well as to obtain bio-oil fractions. When these two units were assigned to run together, the pre-treated bio-oil from the first reduced pressure distillation unit could be pumped directly into the molecular distillation unit.

Figure 5. Schematic diagram of the joint distillation system.

Anaerobic continuous studies

Generally, the design rules of biological reactors are all based on high removal efficiency of degradable organic matter. Consequently, if the substrate composition and strength of a wastewater are known, a basic design of a high-rate anaerobic system can be established. According to [52], the main design criteria of UASB reactors are, among others: applicable organic load, upflow velocity, three-phase separator, and influent distribution system.

The UASB reactors are generally designed based on the organic volumetric load (OVL) (kgCOD/m3-day) that is defined as follows:

OVL = QSo / V (21)

where Q: influent flow rate (m3/day), So: influent COO (kgCOD/m3) , and V: volume of reactor (m3), From Equation (21) the volume of the reactor, V, can be obtained:

V = QSo / OVL (22)

For most industrial wastewaters, the OVL (based on degradable COD) is the critical factor for the reactor volume. Its value depends on the quantity and quality of the granular sludge; the nature, type, and concentration of the pollutants; the temperature; the required treatment efficiency and the desired safety regarding peak loads [16, 53].

The secondary producers and food webs

The thermodynamics of the biomass flow and secondary production indicates that the transfer efficiency of carbon in the sea webs may approach to 15 per cent; however, many other authors (in Christensen and Pauly 1993; Pauly and Christensen 1995) adopted the value of 10 per cent. All of the consumers depend from the chemical energy to subsist; this energy is synthesized by the primary producers and transferred to other trophic levels trough consumption by herbivores and then passed to several levels of animals through predation.

Zooplankton, the free-living animals suspended at the water column, are the kind or organisms which make use of the primary production. The main component of this food webs is the group of copepods. Apart o being composed mostly by herbivores, zooplankton also contains many predators of first order, like jelly fish and other crustaceans as larval stages of benthic organisms spending in most cases, from a few days to several months suspended in the water column as predators of micro zooplankton, then being recruited to the benthic communities as they grow.

Caloric value of organisms indicates very uniform qualities through the food web, being higher in those animals storing lipids in their bodies. In sugars and proteins, the caloric value is 4,100 cal g-1, whilst in lipids this value amounts to 9,300 cal g-1, but when these substances are not totally oxidized, the calories available are nearly 90% of their total caloric values. A high production of biomass from the primary producers would be uptaken by the herbivores and transferred to upper levels of the food web. This means that a high primary production will imply high biomass of consumers in proportion following the rule of 10 per cent; this is, for each ton of top predators, there will be 10 mt of predators of first order, and 100 mt of herbivores. The biomass of the carnivores ranges between 0.5 and 2 g C m-2 and follows the 10% rule respecting to the lower level. The biomass of primary producers, mainly phytoplankton, may be lower than the herbivores because of their high turnover rate. It is pertinent to mention that upwelling zones of the sea, like in Peru on the west coast of America and West Africa, significant amounts of nutrients are flowing up from the deep sea enriching the surface waters in the photic zone and stimulating the primary productivity. In these zones, the process of evolution has allowed the organization of short food chains, where the sardine and anchovies take advantage exploiting much of this production, allowing the growth of large schools which are exploited by human beings, with levels of exploitation of more than 12 Million mt, as occurred in Peru in the early seventies.

2. The fisheries infrequent, to become abundant and reducing the biodiversity; this seems to be the case of squids and jellyfishes. This process determines an increase of the primary production/biomass ratio in the ecosystem. The most productive ecosystems are those associated to upwelling, where the fast growing predators with short life spans, plankton feeders determining the existence of short food chains, allow the existence of very productive fisheries as in the case of anchovy and sardine fisheries. In other natural communities, where the ecosystem usually imposes high environmental stability, top predators usually are animals with long life span in relatively long food chains; in this case, the potential biomass production is low, because the evolutionary forces are oriented towards the density dependent processes, leading to the organization of ecosystems with high biodiversity as occurs in coral reefs. In this kind of communities, the surplus production is almost nule, because the production/consumption ratio approaches zero, severely reducing the capacity of commercial exploitation.

Batch fermentation process

The bioethanol production from agave juice batch fermentation process is shown. For this work, three yeast strains isolated from agave juice were studied for their fermentative capacity. The strains (S1, S2 and S3) were identified by biochemical and molecular tests [15]. The experiments were performed using agave juice supplemented with sufficient ammonium sulphate, for maintaining a good performance of the yeast strains. For fermentation medium, sugar concentration of the agave juice was adjusted to 12 °Brix (95±5 g/L reducing sugar) and then supplemented with 1g/L of ammonium sulphate. Culture media were sterilized at 121 °C for 15 min. The pH of the unadjusted juice was 4.2. This fermentation medium was similar to the must typically used in industrial distilleries for obtain alcoholic beverage. The fermentations were carried out under anaerobic conditions at 35 °C and 250 rpm in a 3 L bioreactor (Applikon, Netherlands). The inoculation level was 20 million cells/mL. Two fermentations were performed with each yeast.

Each must was fermented for 72 h, and sampling was performed every 2 h during the first 12 h of fermentation, then every 4 h during the following 48 h, until the last sampling event at 72 h. Biomass concentration was obtained by dry weight measurement. Reducing sugar concentration was determined by the DNS method modified and glucose, fructose and

glycerol concentration was determined by HPLC [15]. Samples were micro-distilled and ethanol concentration was determined in distillates by using the potassium dichromate method [19].

Fermentation Kinetic Analysis — The evolution of biomass, sugar consumption and ethanol production versus time were plotted in Fig. 1 and Table 1, showing the kinetic parameters of each strain. All Saccharomyces strains grew faster reaching a biomass concentration level of 4­5.3 g/L by approximately 12 h and sugar was completely depleted by 18-24 h of the fermentation (Figure 4). The S1 and S2 strains showed a higher ethanol concentration and sugar consumption than S3 (Figure 4 and Table 4).

Growth and ethanol yields were different: 0.046-0.059 g/g and 0.47-0.49 g/g, respectively (Table 4). Statistical analysis (95% LSD) showed significant differences between yeast strains in all kinetic parameters (Table 4). S. cerevisiae S1 strain presented a higher value of maximum specific growth and sugar consumption than S2 and S3 strains. Likewise, S1 and S3 strains showed a high maximum specific ethanol rate (Table 4).

Kinetics parameters

Strain

^max

(h-1)

qsmax

(g/gh-1)

qpmax (g/g h-1)

Yx/s

(g/g)

Yp/s

(g/g)

Xf

(g/L)

Sc

(g/L)

Etohf

(g/L)

S1

0.43±.016

4.28±.27

1.56±.12

0.050±.004

0.49±.027

4.34±.26

86.7±2.0

42.6±1.0

S2

0.33±.030

2.85±.15

1.34±.06

0.055±.004

0.49±.001

4.86±.44

87.4±1.2

43.5±.55

S3

0.35±.020

3.74±.27

1.52±.06

0.052±.001

0.47±.015

4.35±.10

83.9±.30

39.9±1.4

|j. max: maximum specific growth rate; qsmax: maximum specific sugar consumption rate; qpmax: maximum specific ethanol production rate; Yx/s and Yp/s: yields of biomass and ethanol; Sc: consumed substrate concentration; Xf: final biomass concentration; Etohf: final ethanol concentration. Each value represents the average ± standard deviation of duplicate determinations of two fermentations.

Table 4. Comparison of kinetic parameters and final concentration of biomass, consumed substrate and ethanol for the different strains.

Nikel based catalysts

Nickel has been developed with various promoters and carriers for decomposing tar and tar models [7-27].

Zhang [13] investigated tar catalytic destruction in a tar conversion system consisting of a guard bed and catalytic reactor. Three Ni based catalysts (ICI46-1, Z409 and RZ409) were proven to be effective in eliminating heavy tars (99% destruction efficiency). The experimental results demonstrated that space velocity (1500 -6000) had little effect on gas compositions, while increasing temperature boosted hydrogen yield and reduced light hydrocarbons (CH4 and C2H4) formation, which suggested that tar decomposition was controlled by chemical kinetics.

Furusawa et al. [14] reported that 10 wt% Ni/MgO (873 K) catalyst showed the best performance. Nickel supported on silica was active for tar catalyst cracking methane at relatively low temperature (823 K) was described by Zhang [9].

Srinakruang et al.[15,16] has developed Ni/Dolomite as highly efficient sulphur and coking resistance catalyst, and reported that calcining at 500 oC exhibited the most effective catalyst among Ni/SiO2 and Ni/АЬОэ; the poisoning effect was enhanced by increasing the reaction temperature and steam/C ratio; higher activity, durability and coking resistance.

Sato et al. [17], has developed Ni-WO3/MgO-CaO catalyst for naphthalene and toluene reforming. The results exhibited a better resistance to sulfur and coking catalyst; tar reforming to better than 90% and 100 h steady tar reforming operation (in H2S) at 800­850 oC.

Dou et al. [18] compared five catalysts on tar removal from fuel gases in a fixed-bed reactor. The Y-zeolite and NiMo catalysts were found to be the most effective about 100% tar removal can be achieved at 550 oC. It was also observed that process variables like temperature and space velocity had very significant effect on tar removal.

Baker [19] also mentioned the phenomena in their experiments. In order to overcome the shortcoming of the commercial Ni-based catalyst, many Ni-based catalysts were developed.

Miyazawa et al. [20] has prepared Ni (Ni/AhO3, Ni/ZrO2, Ni/TiO2, Ni/CeO2 and Ni/MgO) catalyst to reformed tar in the partial oxidation (POT) and steam introduction. Results have been achieved: the order of the performance at 823 K was as follows: Ni/AhO3 > Ni/ZrO2 > Ni/TiO2 > Ni/CeO2 > Ni/MgO > no catalyst; Ni/CeO2 showed smaller amount of coke than other catalysts; in the POT, much higher tar conversion and lower coke yield were obtained than that in SRT using fixed bed reactor.