Evaluation of Solid Biomass Fuel for Some Iraqi Agricultural Wastes Using Proximate and Ultimate Analyses

In this study, the characterizations of some Iraqi biomass agricultural residues have been investigated utilizing proximate, ultimate and caloric value analyses. This provides a preliminary evaluation for these types of solid biomass in terms of their potential for use directly or indirectly as fuels, especially for thermo-chemical processes such as combustion, gasification, and pyrolysis processes. For this work, five different types of Iraqi agricultural waste materials, namely Dodona trees, kernels of dates, corn silk-husk, sunflower seed husks, and reeds were studied. These materials are abundant wastes in Iraq, especially in the central and southern regions. The proximate analysis of moisture content, volatile matters, ash content, and fixed carbon tests were experimentally conducted for those five biomass materials, according to the British Standards Institution. In contrast, ultimate analysis was primarily represented by elements analysis. Carbon (C), Hydrogen (H), Oxygen (O), Nitrogen (N), and Sulfur (S) were calculated theoretically using highly accurate correlations. These correlations depended mainly on proximate analysis element results. A similar procedure of calculations was followed for the caloric value estimation. The results of this study show that for moisture content, Dodona tree and reed stalks have highest percentage. whilst the other biomass materials fall within the typical standard analysis 6–10 %. A good result was obtained for ash content. It shows a low weight percentage, which ranged from 0.77 to 3.5%. Given a high percentage of volatile matters for all materials except Dodona tree, these materials can be considered have high reactivity. The results for the important characteristic, higher heating values (HHV) for all biomass materials, were located in a typical range, 16–20 MJ/kg. In general, the results show that most of these interesting biomass materials have positive potential for fuel energy utilization.