Omid Gholami presented proposed PhD research and preliminary results

On Monday, June 06, 2022, during our regular group meeting, Omid Gholami Banadkoki, a Ph.D. student at BBRG, presented his proposed research project with the title of “feasibility studies of on-site pellet production from agricultural residues in decentralized farms”. He is working on the concept of the carbon cycle in a sustainably Canadian farm and to investigate the possibility of utilizing the existing grain handling infrastructure for the ag-pellets supply chain. The main objectives of his project are: (1) to investigate the potential of ag-residues as a complementary material for woody biomass sources, (2) to characterize the feedstock properties and determine process parameters to produce the durable ag-pellet from ag-residues, (3) to study the storage and handling properties of the ag-pellets, and (4) to analyze the combustion behavior of ag-pellets.

Omid drafted a simplified material flow cycle of the utilization of wheat straw.

The figure below shows the proposed processing steps to make ag-pellets.