Caracterización de residuos de banano (pseudotallo y hojas) mediante análisis termogravimétrico para uso potencial como biocombustible sólido

Abstract

An alternative for the production of biofuels is the transformation of lignocellulosic waste, including wood and non-wood biomass. Colombia to be a country rich in agricultural resources generates large amounts of waste from monocultures such as coffee, sugar cane, bananas and others. Banana waste are produced in areas where access to energy is minimal and the current treatment of these wastes focuses on the biological treatment looking for a product that helps to reduce the application of fertilizers to land. This project aims to study the potential use of these residues for implementation as biofuel for combustion and get energy from them. In this work a characterization of waste banana plant (pseudo stem and leaf) was performed by thermogravimetric analysis with a TA Instrument TGA Q500IF, in order to define the content of the three main components (hemicellulose, cellulose and lignin). Experiments were performed under pyrolysis conditions and through an algorithm implemented with Scilab tool. Moreover, the aim was to develop a tool for determining the ash content, moisture content, carbon residue content and content of hemicellulose, cellulose and lignin for combustion reactor from a thermogravimetric analysis. The values can be concluded that both the pseudo stem and leaf banana plant residues are potential advantage in the process of combustion and power generation purposes.