Title:
Exploitation of the Marine Waste Posidonia Oceanica Egagropiles to Biofuel
Author(s):
Fulignati, S., Bonaldi, L., Barsotti, F., Licursi, D., Di Fidio, N., Menicagli, V., Balestri, E., Antonetti, C., Raspolli Galletti, A.M.
Document(s):
Paper
Abstract:
Posidonia Oceanica is an endemic seagrass of the Mediterranean Sea which forms large underwater meadows. Due to marine currents, the meadows detach from the seabed and arrange in fibrous spherical aggregates, called egagropiles, which accumulate along the coast causing environmental problems. This work proposes the egagropiles of Posidonia oceanica as feedstock to produce butyl levulinate (BL), a promising biofuel having feasible production and good miscibility with gasoline/Diesel. The chemical composition of Posidonia oceanica egagropiles was characterized and the amount of cellulose confirmed their potential as feedstock to produce BL. The reaction was performed under the efficient microwave heating adopting H2SO4 as catalyst. The influence of temperature, time, catalyst amount and biomass loading were studied with the aim of maximizing the BL yield, following the high gravity approach. Once optimised the reaction conditions under microwave heating, the butanolysis was also studied under conventional one to prove the feasible scale-up of the process. Together with BL, a solid residue (char) was produced and characterized to propose its possible employment. In conclusion, the preliminary valorisation of Posidonia oceanica egagropiles to BL has been successfully performed and further studies aiming at the complete biomass exploitation are now in progress.
Keywords:
biofuel, biorefinery, esterification, char, posidonia oceanica egagropiles
Topic:
Biomass Conversion to Bio-based Products and Chemicals
Subtopic:
Co-production of biofuels and biochemicals
Event:
32nd European Biomass Conference and Exhibition
Session:
6BO.11.3
Pages:
807 - 812
ISBN:
978-88-89407-24-0
Paper DOI:
10.5071/32ndEUBCE2024-6BO.11.3
Price:
FREE
