Modeling the valorization of poultry litter via thermochemical processing

Waste management via thermochemical processing is gaining increasing importance as larger volumes of solid waste are generated yearly. The poultry industry generates a variety of wastes, of which the largest stream in terms of volume is the litter. In this study, three thermodynamic models were developed on ASPEN Plus v8.8 for pyrolysis, in‐line steam reforming, and gasification of poultry litter. At optimal pyrolysis of 450 °C, the product yield was 43.74 wt% bio‐oil, 6.71 wt% gas, and 49.55 wt% char. The optimal conditions for the in‐line steam reforming of poultry litter were observed to be 400 °C temperature and 12 kg kg−1 steam‐to‐feed ratio (STFR), yielding a syngas composition of 70.2 mol% H2, 29.4 mol% CO2, 0.22 mol% CH4, and a trace amount of CO. The optimal conditions for the gasification of poultry litter were 700 °C temperature and 0.2 kg kg−1, yielding a syngas composition of 52.6 mol% H2, 10.3 mol% CO2, 2.77 mol% CH4 and 34.3 mol% CO. Gasification gave a higher syngas yield but with less quality. Steam reforming gave better quality but a lower yield. © 2019 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd