Imagine being a farmer somewhere in Mississippi making a living growing and selling bails of hay. Only instead of selling the hay in the animal-feeding market, the farmer makes his profit selling hay for gas production.
Because of research being conducted by Alex Thomasson and Mark Bricka, professors at Mississippi State University, this could one day be a possibility.
Thomasson and Bricka are participating in experiments using a new machine called a Biomax gasifier.
The machine takes agricultural biomass, such as wood chips, compacted grass clippings, and compacted pieces of hay, and turns it into combustible gas.
This gas can then be converted into other products like ethanol and acetate. Then it can be used in gasoline or for making plastic products, Thomasson said.
“This would ultimately mean that farmers could produce crops specifically for the purpose of making gas,” he said. “Thus, there would be a new outlet for agricultural commodities.”
The university bought the machine with a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The machine decomposes the biomass by a low-oxygen thermal process and converts it into a combustible gas mixture. The mixture contains carbon monoxide, hydrogen, methane, carbon dioxide and water.
The gas can then be put into a storage tank using a high-pressure pump where it can be saved and used in other phases of the experiment. This gas could be pumped into an engine, which could turn a shaft and make electricity.
Although this process is not currently being performed at MSU, the effect could eventually aid the university. It could also be used to benefit lesser-developed countries in other parts of the world.
“This would mainly be used in small villages, say, in the Philippines, using coconut shells,” Thomasson said.
“The gasifiers could be used as a source of emergency power replacement,” he continued.
“We can produce biomass forever and if we can convert it into energy or energy-related products, it will provide more energy security,” Bricka said.
Thomasson said the tool could produce a more economic country.
“In a larger sense, the energy source could replace fossil fuels and allow the country to be more self-sufficient,” Thomasson said.
“Aside from the project’s potential benefits to society, its benefits to MSU are that it brings in research dollars, allowing us to purchase equipment and pay grad students and MSU improves its scientific reputation in academic research,” Thomasson said.
Having the Biomax gasifier at Mississippi State provides a one-of-a-kind research tool, said Bricka.
Ben Carlisle, a senior AETB student, is also involved in the project. It is his responsibility to dry down the wood chips required for the research.
“At present we are only drying hardwood chips and pine chips in a North Farm oven,” he said.
Carlisle added that it takes about three to four hours to dry a 55-gallon trash can of chips.
“Loading the chips into the oven isn’t hard. However, when it is time to take the chips out we have be careful not to burn ourselves with the trays that have been in the oven,” Carlisle said.
Bricka said he hopes that the collaborative research efforts of the two departments will help establish the Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experimental Station and the Bagley College of Engineering as leaders in the gasification research field.
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