Characterization of corn stover, distiller grains and cattle manure for thermochemical conversion Lijun Wang a, *, Abolghasem Shahbazi a , Milford A. Hanna b a Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Design, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, Greensboro, NC 27411, USA b Industrial Agricultural Products Center, Department of Biological Systems Engineering, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE 68583-0726, USA article info Article history: Received 29 July 2009 Received in revised form 17 July 2010 Accepted 4 August 2010 Keywords: Thermochemical conversion Biomass Properties Distiller grains Animal manure Agricultural residue abstract Corn stover, distiller grains and cattle manure were characterized to evaluate their acceptability for thermochemical conversion. The energy densities of ground corn stover, distiller grains and cattle manure after totally drying were 3402, 11,813 and 10,374 MJ/m 3 , compared to 37,125 MJ/m 3 for coal. The contents of volatiles in corn stover, distiller grains and cattle manure were 77.4, 82.6 and 82.8%, respectively, on a dry and ash-free basis compared to 43.6% for coal. About 90% of the volatiles in corn stover, distiller grains and cattle manure were released at pyrolysis temperatures of 497, 573 and 565  C, respectively. The combustion of corn stover, distiller grains and cattle manure were completed at 620, 840 and 560  C, respectively. The heat values of the biomass and air mixture for stoi- chiometric combustion were 2.64, 2.75 and 1.77 MJ/kg for dried corn stover, distiller grains and cattle manure, respectively, as compared to 2.69 MJ/kg for coal. Combustion of 1 kg of dry corn stover, distiller grains and cattle manure generated 5.33, 6.20 and 5.66 Nm 3 of flue gas, respectively, compared to 8.34 Nm 3 for coal. Simulation showed that gasification of 1 kg of dried corn stover, distiller grains and cattle manure at 850  C and ER of 0.3 generated 2.02, 2.37 and 1.44 Nm 3 dry syngas at a heating value of about 4.5 MJ/Nm 3 , compared to 3.52 Nm 3 at 5.8 MJ/Nm 3 for coal. The molecular ratio of H 2 to CO in the biomass-derived syngas was close to 1.0, compared to about 0.5 for the coal-derived syngas. ª 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Biomasses such as agricultural residues, bioprocessing wastes and animal wastes are renewable and abundant energy sources. Biomass currently represents approximately 14% of the world’s final energy consumption [1]. As biomass provides neutral CO 2 emission to the environment through its production and utilization cycle, it has been explored to displace conventional fossil fuels for the generation of heat and power, production of liquid and gaseous fuels, and synthesis of chemicals in a sustainable way [2]. Thermo- chemical conversion technologies, which include combus- tion, pyrolysis and gasification, can be used to convert different biomass into favored forms of energy products. Combustion is the conversion of the chemical energy stored in an organic matter into heat with CO 2 and H 2 O as final prod- ucts. Combustion usually produces hot gas at temperatures around 800e1000  C. Pyrolysis is the conversion of biomass to liquid, solid and gaseous fractions by heating the biomass in the absence of air or oxygen to around 500  C. Gasification falls * Corresponding author. Tel.: þ1 336 3347787; fax: þ1 336 3347270. E-mail address: lwang@ncat.edu1 (L. Wang). Available at www.sciencedirect.com http://www.elsevier.com/locate/biombioe biomass and bioenergy 35 (2011) 171 e178 0961-9534/$ e see front matter ª 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.biombioe.2010.08.018