TY - JOUR AU - Mościcki, Krzysztof Jerzy AU - Niedźwiecki, Łukasz AU - Owczarek, Paweł AU - Wnukowski, Mateusz PY - 2016/01/15 TI - Commoditization of wet and high ash biomass: wet torrefaction—a review JF - Journal of Power Technologies; Vol 97 No 4 (2017) KW - commoditization of biomass, torrefaction, hydrothermal carbonization N2 - Biomass is a non-intermittent energy source, which can play an important role in grid-based energy systems, since they need some non-intermittent sources in order to balance the variability of intermittent sources as wind and solar energy. Currently, this role is played mostly by fossil fuels, mainly because of the bulk size of a single source. Higher variability and lower energy concentration, among with some properties of biomass, are obstacles that prevent it from fully becoming a commodity. There are processes, such as dry torrefaction and hydrothermal carbonization (HTC) that could potentially help in terms of making biomass a tradable commodity, as is the case with fossil fuels. HTC, also known as wet torrefaction, might help solve problems that dry torrefaction is incapable of solving. These obstacles are, namely: high ash content, slagging and fouling properties of biomass (along with corrosion). Also the high moisture content of some types of biomass poses a problem, since they usually require substantial amounts of heat for drying. This paper reviews current knowledge about a process that could possibly transform problematic types of biomass into tradable commodities and compares it with other processes offering similar outcomes. UR - https://papers.itc.pw.edu.pl/index.php/JPT/article/view/679