Plants, Vol. 14, Pages 1005: Renewable Energy from Beach-Cast Seaweed: Calorific Power Heating Studies with Macroalgae

Plants doi: 10.3390/plants14071005

Authors:
Fernando Pinto Coelho
Everardo Valadares de Sá Barreto Sampaio
Márcio Gomes Barboza
Elica Amara Cecília Guedes-Coelho
Manoel Messias da Silva Costa
Emerson Carlos Soares da Silva
Victor Andrei Rodrigues Carneiro
Bruno Moreira Soares
Elvis Joacir de França
Rômulo Simões Cezar Menezes
Cesar Augusto Moraes de Abreu

Some stretches of the Brazilian coast are regularly subject to a natural process of macroalgae deposition. In urban beach areas, public institutions responsible for cleaning collect this biomass and dispose of it in landfills. When this biomass is exposed to the sun for a long time in the littoral area, a decomposition process begins and causes greenhouse gas emission into the atmosphere. Macroalgae biomass is a natural resource that could be used for renewable energy, contributing to meeting the growing demand for low environmental impacts of energy, indicating the possibility of participating in sustainable development. The objective of this research was to evaluate the energetic potential of macroalgae biomass deposited on the Maceió coast; specifically, the combustion capacity of aggregate biomass and pellet biofuel produced with macroalgae. The research, which analysed 13 species, proceeded using a calorimetric pump methodology to determine the power heating value and a mass spectrophotometer to determine the available energetic chemical elements. The result of 8.82 MJ/Kg was similar to the main biomass used in Brazil, the sugarcane bagasse, evaluated at 8.91 MJ/Kg. Aggregated macroalgae biomass in condensed pellets with energetic composites obtained a value of 4823 Kcal/Kg, 1.2% more than the average of terrestrial biomass pellets. Therefore, these results show possibilities to produce biofuel using thermal energy from marine macroalgae biomass.

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