Siberian physicists have learned how to turn pine nut husks into biocoal

12 million tons of this raw material is produced per year. Today they just throw it away.

Scientists from Tyumen and Tomsk have created biocoal from pine nut shells and set up the production of fuel pellets from this raw material. This was reported by the Tyumen State University (UTMN).

As specified in the university, the technology allows to produce a ton of energy per hour.

According to representatives of Tyumen State University, up to 12 million tons of pine nut husks are formed in Siberia every year, so the disposal of this waste is important for the region. The shell accounts for about 60% of the mass of each nut.

Biocoal is obtained by decomposing plant biomass at high temperatures. When it is burned, little ash is produced and a lot of thermal energy is released — unlike charcoal. Most often, biocoal pellets are purchased by restaurants and urban households.

Biofuels are one of the most promising alternative energy sources. The undoubted advantage of this source is that well-developed technologies already exist. In addition, the production of biological energy will also solve the issue of recycling. As in the case of pine nuts, many types of agricultural production leave behind waste that pollutes the environment (tops, leaves, and so on).

For a decade now, Russia has been one of the world leaders both in the development of technologies related to biofuels and in the production of raw materials. So, our country is one of the three exporters of pellets — wooden “sticks” that are formed from sawdust, that is, from woodworking waste. Potentially, Russia can produce 72 billion cubic meters of pellets per year.

The problem is that the domestic consumption of biofuels in Russia is still insufficient. The fact is that the unified energy system, inherited by our country from the USSR and providing the highest level of reliability, is reluctant to integrate small energy producers into itself, and also requires high generation stability. This problem is typical for all alternative energy sources.

But power engineers are taking serious steps to switch to a system that will allow flexible inclusion of small producers in the system without losing the reliability of the entire system. High technologies help in this, in particular, artificial intelligence is connected to the network dispatching, which makes it possible to flexibly manage an unlimited number of energy flows coming from both large producers and small stations. Also, the country is actively developing the ideology of autonomous power sources for small isolated settlements.

Cover photo: miodrag ignjatovic / iStock