Clean Poultry Energy System Design Based on Biomass Gasification Technology: Thermodynamic and Economic Analysis

Despite growing attention has been paid to waste material gasification for high-efficiency energy conversion, the application of gasification technology in meat waste management is still limited. To fill this gap, this study designed two systems which evaluated the potential of using gasification technology to manage the poultry waste that has been exposed to highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI). Two systems are simulated by using Aspen plus combined with a one-dimensional kinetics control gasification model, and wood or dried poultry is selected as the feedstock for the gasifier. The results show that the energy efficiency of the poultry drying system (wood gasification) is 14.5%, which is 12% lower than that of the poultry gasification system when the poultry energy is accounted as energy input. Even though the economic analysis indicates the poultry elimination cost of the poultry gasification system is only 30 $/tonne lower than the poultry drying system, taking the absence of dried poultry burial into consideration, the poultry gasification system has development potentials. The sensitivity analysis shows that labor fee and variable factor has larger effects on the poultry elimination cost, while the uncertainty analysis determines the uncertainty level of the economic analysis results.