Lecture 3

“Biomass Conversion Methods”

 2- Biochemical Conversion Process:
Ø Biochemical conversion of biomass involves use of bacteria, microorganisms and
enzymes to breakdown biomass into Solid, gaseous and liquid fuels.
Ø These microorganisms usually live at the bottom of swamps or in other places where
there is no air, consuming dead organic matter.
Ø In this process biomass is converted into biogas (CO 2 /CH 4 ),waste (compost or
fertilizer) and biofuel (bioethanol C2H5OH) by using microorganisms.
Ø This process was aimed at producing products that could replace petroleum-based

products and as well as those obtained from the grains. Biochemical conversion
technologies are clean, pure, and efficient when compared with the other conversion
technologies
Ø The biochemical processes refer mainly to:

A. Anaerobic Digestion which produces fertilizer and gas (CH4/CO2).

B. Aerobic Digestion which produces compost, carbon dioxide and water.

C. Alcoholic fermentation which produces ethanol (C2H5OH), carbon dioxide (CO2)

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and waste.
 A- Anaerobic Digestion:
Ø AD is a series of biological processes in which microorganisms breakdown

biodegradable material in the absence of oxygen. When functioning well, the

bacteria convert about 90% of the feedstock energy content into biogas

Ø Various feedstock can be used:

Livestock manure, municipal wastewater solids, food waste, industrial wastewater and
residuals, fats, and other organic waste Streams.

Ø End product of the process:

1. Biogas: a mixture of CH4 and CO2 mainly (methane not less than 55%, carbon
dioxide not more than 45%, hydrogen sulfide not more than 2%, hydrogen not
more than 1%) which is combusted to generate electricity and/or heat or processed
into renewable natural gas and transportation fuel.

2. Digested solid: residue from the digester, can be composted and applied as land
amendment or used for dairy bedding.
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3. Nutrients: residue from liquid digestion, used in agriculture as fertilizer.
 Process Description:
Ø Anaerobic digester is a device that promotes the decomposition of manure or
“digestion” of the organics in manure to simple organics and gaseous biogas
products.
Ø The production of biogas from organic material under anaerobic condition involves
sequence of microbial reactions. During the process complex organic molecule
present in the biomass are broken down to sugar, alcohols, pesticides and amino
acids by acid producing bacteria. The resultant products are then used to produce
methane by another category of bacteria.
Ø The biogas production process involves three stages:
1. Hydrolysis.
2. Acidogenesis
3. Acetogenesis
4. Methanogenesis
Ø The efficiency of the digestion depends how far the digestion happens in these three
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stages. Better the digestion, shorter the retention time and efficient gas production.
 1. Hydrolysis: biomass (consisting of very large organic polymers such as fats,
carbohydrates, and proteins) is converted into smaller molecules such as fatty acids,
simple sugars, and amino acids.

2. Acidogenesis: In this stage, acidogenic microorganisms (fermentative bacteria)

further decompose the products of the hydrolysis stage, producing NH3, CO2, H2,
H2S, lighter volatile fatty acids, carbonic acids, and alcohols.

3. Acetogenesis: This step employs acetogenic microorganisms catabolising the

products created in the acidogenesis phase into acetic acid (CH3COOH), CO2, and
H2. Acetogens finalize the break down process of the biomass facilitating the action
of the methanogenic process to produce methane as biofuel.

4. Methanogenesis: Is the final stage of anaerobic digestion during which, as

mentioned earlier, methane is generated from the main products of acetogenesis
(CH3COOH and CO2) through hydrogenotrophic and/or acetoclastic
methanogenesis as shown below.
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6 Stages of Anaerobic Digestion (methane fermentation process)
 Anaerobic digesters can be designed and engineered to operate using a
number of different process configurations:
1- Batch or continuous: In the batch system biomass is added to the reactor at the start
of the process. Typically, biogas production will be formed with a normal distribution
pattern over time. The operator can use this fact to determine when they believe the
process of digestion has completed. But In continuous digestion processes organic
matter is continuously added or added in stages to the reactor. Here the end products
are constantly or periodically removed, resulting in constant production of biogas.

2- Temperature: There are two operational temperature level for anaerobic digesters:
•Mesophilic: which takes place optimally around 30-38 C where mesophiles are the
primary microorganism present.
•Thermophilic: which takes place optimally around 49-57 C where thermophiles are the
primary microorganisms present.
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 3- Number of stages:
• One-stage or single-stage: In this type all of the biological reactions occur within a
single sealed reactor or holding tank. Utilizing a single stage reduces construction
costs; however, it facilitates less control of the reactions occurring within the system.
• Two-stage or multistage: In this type different digestion vessels are optimized to bring
maximum control over the bacterial communities living within the digesters. Typically
hydrolysis, acetogenesis and acidogenesis occur within the first reaction vessel. The
organic material is then heated to the required operational temperature (either
mesophilic or thermophilic) prior to being pumped into a methanogenic reactor.

4- Residence Time: The residence time in a digester varies with the amount and type
of feed material, the configuration of the digestion system and whether it be one-stage
or two-stage. In the case of single-stage thermophilic digestion residence times may be
in the region of 14 days, which compared to mesophilic digestion is relatively fast. In
two-stage mesophilic digestion, residence time may vary between 15 and 40 days.
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 Biomass Anaerobic Digestion Scheme.
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B. Aerobic Digestion: It is the metabolization of organic substances
through micro-organisms, whose development depends on the presence of oxygen. These
bacteria convert complex substances into simple ones, releasing CO2 and H2O and highly
w a r m i n g u p t h e s u b s t r a t e , a c c o r d i n g t o t h e i r m e t h a b o l i c a c t i v i t y.

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 C- Alcoholic Fermentation:
Ø Fermentation Fermentation is an anaerobic process that breaks down the glucose

within organic materials. It is a series of chemical reactions that convert sugars to

alcohol or acid. Yeast or bacteria are added to the biomass material, which feed on
the sugars to produce ethanol and carbon dioxide. The ethanol is distilled and
dehydrated to obtain a higher concentration of alcohol to achieve the required
purity for the use as automotive fuel. However, the fermented product is only
about 10% ethanol, so a further stage of distillation is required to concentrate the
ethanol to 95%. If the ethanol is intended for blending with gasoline, a
‘‘dehydration’’ phase may be required to make 100% pure ethanol.

Ø Fermentation methods includes:

1. Batch Fermentation process

2. Continuous Fermentation process

11 3. Fed-batch Fermentation process

1. Batch fermentation process: This process involves adding the substrates,
microorganism, culture medium and nutrients at the beginning of the operation in a
closed system. The products are only withdrawn at the end of the fermentation time. The
problems with this type of fermentation process are low yield, long fermentation time,
and high cost. Also, due to high sugar concentration in the fermentation medium, there
could be substrate inhibition leading to inhibition of cell growth and ethanol production.

2. Continuous fermentation process: This process involves adding substrates, culture

medium and nutrients into a fermenter containing active microorganisms and
withdrawing the products continuously. The products obtained are usually ethanol, cells
and residual sugar. The advantages of continuous fermentation process are high
productivity, small fermenter volumes, and low operational cost.

3. Fed-batch fermentation process: This is the combination of batch and continuous

fermentation processes involving charging the substrate into the fermenter without
removing the medium. Comparing with other fermentation processes, fed-batch process
has higher productivity, more dissolved oxygen in medium, shorter fermentation time and
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lower toxic effect of the medium.
 Fermentation process

Bioethanol production flow diagram

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Biomass fermentation scheme
 3- Physico-Chemical Conversion Process:
Ø The physical conversion is essentially a process of mechanical pressing of crops

with high oil content (sunflower, rapeseed, soybean). The end results are some
edible squeezing oil and protein panels containing a higher percentage of oil (10%
max), used by the animal feed industry.

Ø The physico-chemical conversion processes of biomass leads to the production of

high-density biofuels. More specifically, various types of vegetable oil ad animal

fats are converted into biodiesel through esterification and/or transesterification
processes. Major vegetable oils used to produce first generation biodiesel include
rapeseed oil and sunflower oil accounting for 80-85% and 10-15% of the total
biodiesel production worldwide, respectively. Waste oils including waste cooking
oil and microbial oil including algal oil could also be used to produce biofiesel.

Ø It should be noted that oils are mainly composed of triglycerides, which do not

represent a usable fuel. In fact, the transformation of the crude vegetable oil is
15 necessary as otherwise, problems such as incomplete combustion and consequent
 accumulation of residues in engines are expected. Therefore, the raw material must
undergo further processing, i.e., mainly transesterification, to break apart the
triglyceride molecules into their constituents, i.e., fatty acids and glycerol. The latter is
in fact the source of high viscosity of vegetable oils.

Ø Through the transesterification reaction, the triglycerides are converted into methyl

or ethyl esters (biodiesel) through the use of methyl or ethyl alcohol (in excess),
respectively, in the presence of mostly an alkaline catalyst (i.e., NaOH or KOH)

Ø The transesterification process of triglycerides occurs at low temperatures (50-70

°C) and 1atm. The obtained product is neutralized and purified, especially for the
presence of glycerol. The glycerol fraction is much denser than the biodiesel
fraction, so it can be separated from biodiesel using a phase separator. Once the
glycerol and biodiesel phases have been separated, the excess alcohol could be
removed by distillation or partial evaporation. Once separated from glycerol,
biodiesel is usually purified by water-washing (liquid-liquid extraction) in order to
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remove residual catalysts and soaps. The product is finally dried and stored.
 Extraction Methods:

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 Biomass physico-chemical conversion scheme
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