Publications by authors named "Foster Agblevor"

Waste tires (WT) are produced in millions of tons per annum and their safe disposal is always a major environmental challenge because of fire hazards and the increasing cost of landfills. WT has high organic matter content that can be converted into fuels and chemicals if suitable technologies can be developed. Herein we report the catalytic pyrolysis of WT using formulated red mud catalyst to produce low sulfur fuel that can be fractionated or can be used without fractionation.

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Pyrolysis can effectively convert waste tires into high-value products. However, the sulfur-containing compounds in pyrolysis oil and gas would significantly reduce the environmental and economic feasibility of this technology. Here, the desulfurization and upgrade of waste tire pyrolysis oil and gas were performed by adding different metal oxides (FeO, CuO, and CaO).

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Biomass was upgraded to fuel blendstocks via catalytic fast pyrolysis (CFP) followed by hydrotreating using three approaches: ex situ CFP with a zeolite catalyst (HZSM-5), ex situ CFP with a hydrodeoxygenation catalyst (Pt/TiO) and cofed hydrogen, and in situ CFP with a low-cost mixed metal oxide catalyst (red mud). Each approach was evaluated using a common pine feedstock and the same hydrotreating procedure. The oxygen contents in the CFP oils ranged from 17 to 28 wt % on a dry basis, and the carbon efficiencies for the CFP processes were in the range of 28-38%.

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Red mud (RM) is composed of a waste alkaline solution (pH = 13.3) obtained from the production of alumina. It contains high concentrations of hematite (FeO), goethite (FeOOH), gibbsite [Al(OH)], a boehmite (AlOOH), anatase (Tetragonal-TiO), rutile (Ditetragonal dipyramidal-TiO), hydrogarnets [CaAl(SiO)(OH)], quartz (SiO), and perovskite (CaTiO).

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Recognizing that bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) may still take years to mature, this study focuses on another photosynthesis-based, negative-carbon technology that is readier to implement in China: biomass intermediate pyrolysis poly-generation (BIPP). Here we find that a BIPP system can be profitable without subsidies, while its national deployment could contribute to a 61% reduction of carbon emissions per unit of gross domestic product in 2030 compared to 2005 and result additionally in a reduction in air pollutant emissions. With 73% of national crop residues used between 2020 and 2030, the cumulative greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction could reach up to 8620 Mt CO-eq by 2050, contributing 13-31% of the global GHG emission reduction goal for BECCS, and nearly 4555 Mt more than that projected for BECCS alone in China.

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Anaerobic digestion of water hyacinth (Pontederia crassipes Mart.) from eutrophic water bodies could be a sustainable post weed management practice to generate bioenergy. Comparative analyses of the water quality, physicochemical characteristics, and biomethanation kinetics of water hyacinth from two sites with different water types (brackish versus freshwater) in the Ozama river, Dominican Republic, were conducted.

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Olive mill wastewater sludge (OMWS) and waste tires (WTs), abundant wastes in Tunisia, were used as feedstock in a slow co-pyrolysis pilot reactor to produce upgraded pyrolytic oil as an alternative fuel. Despite the improvement of some properties of the pyrolytic oil when waste tires were added in the feed blend, a negative synergy was observed in the yield of the oil compared with that of char. The characterization of oil samples showed synergetic interaction between OMWS and WTs during co-pyrolysis which led to a partial deoxygenation and resulted in reduction of viscosity and increase in the calorific value of the co-pyrolytic oils.

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Light olefins are the key building blocks for the petrochemical industry. In this study, the effects of in-situ and ex-situ process, temperature, Fe loading, catalyst to feed ratio and gas flow rate on the olefins carbon yield and selectivity were explored. The results showed that Fe-modified ZSM-5 catalyst increased the olefins yield significantly, and the ex-situ process was much better than in-situ.

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Background: One of the potential limitations of large scale aerobic Escherichia coli fermentation is the need for increased dissolved oxygen for culture growth and bioproduct generation. As culture density increases the poor solubility of oxygen in water becomes one of the limiting factors for cell growth and product formation. A potential solution is to use a microbubble dispersion (MBD) generating device to reduce the diameter and increase the surface area of sparged bubbles in the fermentor.

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Rotating algal biofilm reactor (RABR) technology was successfully employed in an effective strategy to couple the removal of wastewater nutrients with accumulation of valuable bioproducts by grown algae. A secondary stage municipal wastewater was fed to the developed system and the effects of the hydraulic retention time (HRT) parameter on both nutrient removal and bioproduct production were evaluated under fed-batch operation mode. Two sets of bench scale RABRs were designed and operated with HRTs of 2 and 6days in order to provide competitive environment for algal growth.

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Pyrolysis of Milkweed was carried out in a thermogravimetric analyzer and a bubbling fluidized bed reactor. Total liquid yield of Milkweed pyrolysis was between 40.74% and 44.

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The thermodynamic and kinetic properties of solids state raw starch digesting alpha amylase from newly isolated Bacillus licheniformis RT7PE1 strain were studied. The kinetic values Q p , Y p/s , Y p/X , and q p were proved to be best with 15% wheat bran. The molecular weight of purified enzyme was 112 kDa.

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As a renewable resource, Pinyon pine can be converted into bio-oil, gas, and char through pyrolysis. It is known that recycling of the non-condensable gases, which are produced by fast pyrolysis, can increase liquid yield and decrease char yield. In this study, pyrolysis characteristics and kinetics of Pinyon pine were investigated in TGA using simulated non-condensable gases (N2, H2/N2, H2/CO2, and He/CO/H2).

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The unstable nature of biocrude oils produced from conventional pyrolysis of biomass is one of the properties that limits its application. In the disposal of poultry litter via pyrolysis technology, the biocrude oil produced as a value-added product can be used for on farm applications. In this study, we investigated the influence of bedding material (wood shavings) on the storage stability of biocrude oils produced from the fast pyrolysis of poultry litter.

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Poultry litter from broilers and turkeys are a mixture of manure, feathers, feed and wood shavings, thus pyrolysis oils produced from this material are influenced by the individual components. In order to determine the influence of wood shavings that are used as bedding material, we investigated the pyrolysis of pine wood shavings and poultry manure. Because manure from layer chickens are usually not contaminated with wood shavings, we made mixtures of layer manure and pine wood shavings in the following manure to wood ratios, 100:0, 75:25, 50:50, 25:75, and 0:100 w/w and pyrolyzed them in a fluidized bed reactor at 450 °C.

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Ethanol production from the steam-exploded mixture of 75% cotton gin waste and 25% recycled paper sludge in various conditions was investigated by semi-simultaneous saccharification and fermentation (SSSF) consisting of a pre-hydrolysis and a simultaneous saccharification and fermentation (SSF). Four cases were studied: 24-h pre-hydrolysis + 48-h SSF (SSSF 24), 12-h pre-hydrolysis + 60-h SSF (SSSF 12), 72-h SSF, and 48-h hydrolysis + 24-h fermentation (SHF). The ethanol concentration, yield, and productivity of SSSF 24 were higher than those of the other operations.

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An operable batch model of simultaneous saccharification and fermentation (SSF) for ethanol production from cellulose has been developed. The model includes four ordinary differential equations that describe the changes of cellobiose, glucose, yeast, and ethanol concentrations with respect to time. These equations were used to simulate the experimental data of the four main components in the SSF process of ethanol production from microcrystalline cellulose (Avicel PH101).

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Chicken litter generally consists of a mixture of bedding, manure, feathers and spilled food. Flock of birds litter (flock) is a litter consisting of hardwood shavings, feed, feathers and manure; and broiler litter (broiler) is a cake of chicken litter. A kinetic investigation of the pyrolysis of chicken litter (flock and broiler) was carried out using thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) at heating rates of 5 degrees C/min, 10 degrees C/min and 20 degrees C/min.

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Cotton gin residue (CGR) collected from five cotton gins was fractionated and characterized for summative composition. The major fractions of the CGR varied widely between cotton gins and consisted of clean lint (5-12%),hulls (16-48%), seeds (6-24%), motes (16-24%), and leaves (14-30%). The summative composition varied within and between cotton gins and consisted of ash (7.

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