Impact of Enthalpy on the Exergo-environmental and Energy Performance of a Biomass Power Plant

Among green energy sources, biomass has significant advantages over fossil fuels in terms of cost and environmental impact. However, the presence of a high moisture content in biomass negatively affects its combustion energy, resulting in a lower flame temperature and an increase in the production of undesirable gaseous compounds, which can lead to operational and environmental problems. The biomass must therefore be dehydrated before it can be burnt to produce electricity. To optimise energy efficiency and minimise the costs associated with drying, it is essential to design an efficient thermal integration between the steam power plant and the biomass dehydration stage. In this study, enthalpy analyses are carried out on a biomass power plant that uses agricultural waste (dried banana peel) as fuel, with a view to assessing the energy efficiency, exergy and CO<sub>2</sub> emissions produced. The Rankine-Hirn cycle was used to model the biomass power plant through exergy and environmental analysis. A custom code was designed in Matlab to obtain our results. The results of this study show that the optimal output enthalpy of the pump is 450 KJ.Kg<sup>-1</sup> for a maximum value of the exergy efficiency of the biomass plant of 41%; the optimum enthalpy at the turbine outlet is 200KJ/Kg for an energy efficiency of 95%; the maximum energy efficiency is 88%, when the enthalpy at the turbine inlet reaches its optimal value at 3400 kJ.Kg<sup>-1</sup>. This system can be used to generate electricity in areas where access is limited.