ABSTRACT:
On account of receiving a great deal of attention on net-zero emissions lately, renewable energy development is considered an effective countermeasure to abate anthropogenic CO2 emissions and mitigate global warming. Bioenergy plays a crucial role in developing renewable energies and currently accounts for the largest share. Unlike solar energy and wind, with the main purpose of power generation, the primary target of bioenergy is to produce biofuels to replace fossil fuels. However, biomass possesses several disadvantages: hygroscopic and biodegradable, high moisture content, low calorific value, poor grindability, large volume or low bulk density, and low homogeneity. The aforementioned biomass properties can be improved to a great extent after it undergoes torrefaction. Torrefaction is a biomass pretreatment and thermochemical conversion process to upgrade biomass and produce low-temperature biochar, making biochar similar to coal. The produced biochar is a carbon-neutral fuel because the net carbon emission from its combustion is zero. Biochar from torrefaction can be used as bio adsorbent to treat wastewater. It can also be used as sustainable materials for soil amendment, wood utilization, polymer blending, and architecture coating to achieve carbon negative. This talk addresses biomass property transformation and biochar characteristics from torrefaction. The applications of biochar for carbon-neutral fuel and carbon-negative materials will also be introduced.

Professor Wei-Hsin Chen is a Distinguished Professor at the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics and the Director of Energy Industry Talent Education Center, National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan. He is also the Honorary Chair Professor at Tunghai University, Chair Professor at the National Chin-Yi University of Technology, Research Fellow of the National Science and Technology Council, Taiwan, and Vice President of the Institute for Liquid Atomization and Spray Systems (ILASS)-Asia. His research topics include bioenergy (combustion, torrefaction, pyrolysis, gasification, liquefaction, bioethanol, etc.), hydrogen production and purification, clean energy (clean coal technology, wind power, thermoelectric generation, carbon capture, and utilization, etc.), energy system analysis (optimization, evolutionary computation, machine learning, etc.), and atmospheric science (aerosol absorption and PM2.5). He has published around 950 papers in international and domestic journals and conferences with an H-index of 78 (Web of Science). He is the Section Editor-in-Chief of Energies, the Editor of Journal of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry, the Associated Editor of Frontiers in Energy Research, and the editorial board member of Applied Energy, Scientific Reports, Chinese Chemical Letters, AIMS Environmental Science, etc. He is a seven consecutive years (2016-present) Clarivate Analytics (Web of Science) Highly Cited Researcher. His received awards include Outstanding Research Award (National Science and Technology Council, Taiwan), Highly Cited Research and Review Paper Awards (Applied Energy, Elsevier), Outstanding Engineering Professor Award (Chinese Institute of Engineers), Highly Cited Review Article Award (Bioresource Technology, Elsevier), etc.