Estudio del método para el tratamiento de residuos de cáscara de plátano por carbonización hidrotermal y su posterior identificación de productos

Abstract

As Colombia's agro-industrial economy grows, so does the amount of agricultural and forestry waste. Simultaneously, urban and population development increases the demand for products that generate food waste. This scenario has driven the implementation of new mechanisms and technologies for the final disposal of organic waste generated in the country. Waste management is one of Colombia's major environmental challenges. By not utilizing agricultural residues as raw materials for other processes, cross-contamination occurs in landfills, contributing to their collapse. However, scientific research has identified an opportunity in these wastes to apply thermal, chemical, mechanical, or microbiological processes that transform them into valuable products such as biofuels, briquettes, compost, and platform chemicals, among others. In this context, hydrothermal carbonization (HTC) emerges as a biorefinery process capable of converting residual biomass from crops into various high-value products through thermochemical transformations. The process utilizes the moisture in the samples, subjecting them to reactors at temperatures between 160 °C and 200 °C and autogenous pressures of up to 5 MPa. Under these conditions, water alters the properties of the raw material, transforming it into a compound called hydrochar, which has hydrophobic properties and is easily separated from the liquid products by filtration, thus facilitating its drying and resulting in a carbon-rich product with high calorific value. This study focuses on the application of HTC as a biorefinery method for treating biomass residues from banana cultivation, a raw material that is abundant and has optimal characteristics for this process due to its high moisture content. An experimental methodology was designed to evaluate the production of solid and liquid by-products, analyzing the effects of time and temperature on carbonization. The process is carried out in three stages: i) pretreatment of the sample, including drying and grinding to increase surface area and facilitate carbonization; ii) application of the experimental design, varying temperature and reaction time in the HTC process to obtain and separate solid and liquid by-products; and iii) drying of the filtered hydrochar, and analysis and quantification of the liquid products using high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) to determine the presence of soluble compounds such as sugars, furans, and organic acids, resulting from the thermal treatments.