Characterization of Corn Stover and Eucalyptus Sawdust for Pellet Production

Reducing the use of fossil fuels and increasing the use of renewable resources is essential in minimizing climate change. As the world progress towards using more renewable resources for energy and other products, biomasses will be crucial to this transition. Utilizing biomass as efficiently as possible is therefore necessary, and this relies on the types of biomasses used in addition to the actual production methods. Biomass residues like corn stover and eucalyptus sawdust could be valuable sources of renewable energy. Corn stovers are herbaceous agricultural residue, whereas eucalyptus sawdust is a woody residue that can be processed into different fuels that have a variety of applications. Pelleting is the cheapest technique for producing fuel pellets that can be employed for heat and electricity production. The overall qualities of pellets can be enhanced by blending biomass materials with different qualities and using additives, such as binders. Corn stovers and eucalyptus sawdust are large waste streams which are more often discarded and underutilized. To ascertain the suitability of these biomass residues as blends on pelletization, determination of their properties through characterization is, therefore, a necessity. The focus of this research was to determine the analysis of both their ultimate and proximate composition of eucalyptus sawdust and corn stover and the higher heating values. These properties were determined using ASTM standards. The results obtained for proximate analysis of corn stover were moisture content, volatile matter, ash content, and fixed carbon were 5.92%, 74.99%, 5.21%, and 20.13%, respectively, and 3.70%, 84.66%, 3.22%, and 12.11% respectively for eucalyptus sawdust. Corn stovers’ ultimate analysis for carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, sulphur and oxygen were 39.54%, 5.70%, 1.38%, 0.07%, and 53.32%, respectively, and 47.16%, 4.97%, 0.08%, 0.03%, and 47.76%, respectively for eucalyptus sawdust. Higher heating values were 17.38 MJ/kg and 17.93 MJ/kg for corn stover and eucalyptus sawdust, respectively. These results indicate that corn stover and eucalyptus sawdust can be blended together, improving the properties of corn stover pellets, such as higher heating value and reduction of ash content.