Aprovechamiento de residuos vegetales de invernadero para calefacción y enriquecimiento carbónico

Abstract

Agricultural activities generate various kinds of residues. These are generated from various sources like 1) the vegetal part of plants, discarded fruits, liquid fertilizer infiltrations not assimilated by crops, and pesticidal traces. The present dissertation is focused on those greenhouse residues generated from vegetal plants. These are mainly generated along two growing steps: (i) plants pruning while they are being grown (ii) Plants their selves, once the growing season finish. This dissertation is focused on these residues generated from plants at the end of the growing season. This focus was taken because the main portion is generated at this stage, thus being the option with greater potential when being considered as an energy source. Various actions have been developed for this dissertation. These were focused on performing characterization of these greenhouse crop residues, and studying some improvement through adequate techniques for their withdrawal and management. At the same time, their improvement by mixing with other biomass cases was also studied. Once, the treatment of these residues was optimized, their combustion in commercial boilers was studied. The operation conditions were optimized for a given boiler employing these vegetal crop residues as fuel and a heat source for heating applications. Eventually, a system has been developed for CO2 enrichment in greenhouses. In addition, the operational conditions of this process for CO2 adsorption with activated carbon and posterior supplying of this CO2 inside a given greenhouse. The work encompassed with this dissertation has made it possible to probe the effectiveness of some techniques for the pretreatment and manipulation of greenhouse crop residues. At the same time, it has been seen the importance of using adequate settings for the combustion equipment employed. Moreover, it has been probed that the operation of the system proposed for CO2 capture and supply from flue gases was satisfactory during a complete growing season