Experimental investigation of the Heating Value of Biofuels

The final goal of this work is to compare the behaviour of some potential biofuels, that can be produced from lignocellulosic biomass, such as alcohols, alkyl levulinates and alkoxy methyl furfurals, measuring their heating values. The intent is to establish which one is more similar, from an energy content point of view, to the traditional fossil fuels. For commercially available compounds (i.e. methanol, ethanol, propanol, butanol, pentanol, hexanol, methyl levulinate, ethyl levulinate and butyl levulinate), the heating values were experimentally measured using the Parr® 1356 Isoperibol, Oxygen Combustion Bomb Calorimeter. For the compounds of interest not available on the market (i.e. hexyl levulinate, hexoxy methyl furfural) it was necessary to produce them. Their production was optimised to maximise the purity of the compound of interest. The heating value was then evaluated from experiments on the produced mixtures, assuming (prior verification) the additivity of heating values of the single components. Once all the heating values of all the reference compounds were evaluated, the behaviour of the potential biofuels were compared with each other and with the traditional fossil fuels.