Gasification of canola hull fiber
Canola oil is mainly used in food industries. Besides, it has wide range of applications in biodiesel industries; however, the feasibility of biodiesel production from canola oil is still a challenge. Due to higher cost of canola feed, canola and soybeans are the two main crops widely used to produce biodiesel in Canada. Canola fibre and crude glycerol are two important side products of biodiesel production facility and possess limited market. The growth of biodiesel industries in upcoming years will not only produce side products such as canola fiber and crude glycerol but also put immense pressure to utilize them. Canola seeds contain 40-43 % of oil and the remainder is processed into high protein livestock feed due to excellent amino acid profile and high vitamins and minerals content. Engineering Canola fiber into densified, moisture free and uniform pellets and or briquettes is the most promising solution. The demonstration and utilization of the coproducts as an alternative and renewable energy source for use as potential fuels in the processing of canola seeds and production of biodiesel, will increase the overall efficiency, environmental attributes, sustainability and performance of the process, to the benefit of the industry.
Assistance/ mentoring will be provided to the student in each activity presented below. The student will involve in variety of activities. The initiation of the work will start with detailed literature review on biomass gasification to gain in depth knowledge of the topic, followed by giving a presentation about the literature review and the research plan. The process set up will be modified according to the experimental plan and needs. The feedstock will be obtained from the local supplier and then crushed, ground and screened to three different sizes. Trial runs will be performed to get familiar with the system. The gas chromatograph will be recalibrated to check the performance. The student will perform elemental analysis and gain knowledge about elemental analyzer operation and data interpretation. The ASTM standards will be selected to carry out proximate analysis by the student. The student will perform gasification experiments at different process conditions. The student is also going to analyze gas products for each run and perform analysis by plotting graphs at various conditions. At the end of all planned experiments, the results will be summarized in the form of a report/ manuscript.
