Bijoy Biswas

Title : Catalytic hydrothermal liquefaction of food waste: Screening the process parameter on product yield and characterizations

Abstract:

Biofuels and chemicals derived from wet food waste (FW) can serve as a strategy to significantly reduce emissions and mitigate environmental pollution, while preventing the loss of valuable resources. Hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) is one of the most promising thermochemical techniques for converting wet waste into crude oil-like products (biocrude). In this study, catalytic hydrothermal liquefaction of food waste was carried out using cobalt (Co), magnesium (Mg), and cobalt-magnesium (Co-Mg) supported on ZSM-5 to produce high-quality bio-oil. The impact of key operating parameters, such as reaction solvent, temperature, reaction holding time, and catalyst amount, was investigated. In comparison to non-catalytic liquefaction, catalytic liquefaction significantly improved the biocrude yield. The maximum biocrude yield (60.89 wt.%) was achieved with bimetallic Co-Mg/ZSM-5 catalysts at 280 °C with 10 wt.% of catalyst at a reaction time of 15 minutes. Various analytical methods, including GC-MS, FT-IR, CHNS, TGA, and NMR, were employed to identify the composition and quality of the biocrudes. Catalytic liquefaction with Co-Mg/ZSM-5 in an ethanol solvent resulted in a higher percentage of ester compounds (74.15%, area percentage). The biocrude obtained through the catalytic process had lower oxygen and nitrogen content, which led to a higher heating value (HHV). Biocrude quantification revealed the presence of 12.16 wt.% of linoleic ester compounds. The concentration of total nitrogen (TN) in the catalytic aqueous phase was as high as 2.44 g/L, significantly greater than the 0.32 g/L found in the non-catalytic aqueous phase. Furthermore, the optimum Co-Mg/ZSM-5 catalyst demonstrated excellent reusability and stability in FW liquefaction.
Keywords: Food waste; Hydrothermal Liquefaction; Catalysts; Esters Rich Biocrude; Quality Biocrude

Biography:

Dr. Bijoy Biswas graduated (M.Sc) in Chemistry at the Indian Institute of Technology, Chennai, India. He did his PhD from the research group of Prof. Thallada Bhaskar at the CSIR-Indian Institute of Petroleum, India, at Material Resource Efficiency Division (MRED). Then he is working at Auburn University, USA in Biosystems Engineering department. He has contributed for the conversion of lignocellulosic biomass lignin, and aquatic biomass into high value products by applying thermochemical process such as pyrolysis and hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL). He optimized the reaction parameter for the production of selectively higher functional chemicals. The novelty also includes the role of temperature, solvents, catalysts, environment for enrichment of high value compounds using low value and abundantly available waste biomass. He has to his credit around 48 research publications in international peer-reviewed journals, 10 reputed conferences, and 8 book chapters and having more than 2148 citations with an h-index of 23.