Nicholas Agon Email & Phone Number

Antwerp, Flemish Region, Belgium

Olen

Leuven Heverlee, Vlaanderen, België

Conversion of biomass/waste to resources:It is predicted that the world population will grow by 1.8 billion people and the global domestic product will double by 2050. As a consequence, the worldwide waste generation will increase significantly. Appropriate waste management and processing practices will be needed to avoid detrimental effects to human health and the environment. However, even more than posing a threat to the Earth’s biosphere, waste can become an important resource in a future circular economy. Together with other biomass sources and landfilled waste, these materials harbor a huge potential for supplying fossil-free energy-carriers and feedstock for the chemical industry. The current waste processing technologies only aim at energetically valorizing the chemical energy of the material via the production of electricity and/or heat. This is commonly done at relatively low energy conversion efficiencies by burning in boilers, which supply steam to power steam turbines and/or heat. More advanced technologies are being developed which aim at a more complete valorization of the waste. Plasma gasification converts the raw material to an intermediary energy-containing gaseous product, called syngas. This gas, consisting mainly of CO and H2 can be further processed into electricity (using more performant electricity generating technologies, such as gas turbines and fuel cells), fuels or chemicals. Additionally, all these processes can deliver a certain amount of waste heat to next generation heating networks. Through process flow modelling, the value chain (including syngas cleaning efforts) from waste to resources via plasma gasification is mapped, taking the effects of feedstock characteristics, process conditions of the gasification step and imposed syngas quality specifications by the different end applications into account.

Department Of Flow, Heat And Combustion Mechanics

Gent Area, Belgium

Research funded by an IWT doctoral scholarship, at the Faculty of Engineering, Ghent University in collaboration with the Institute of Plasma Physics, Prague.Title:CFD-modeling of the plasma treatment of biomass for the optimisation of sustainable syngas production.Summary:The main objective of the research is to build a process control of a single stage plasma gasification process, by developing a 3-D transient CFD model of such a reactor.This model serves as a tool to optimize the performance of the process and to improve the design of a plasma gasification reactor.

Prague, The Capital, Czech Republic

Master Of Bioscience Engineering, Chemistry And Bioprocess Technology, Magna Cum Laude

Master, Energy And Technology

Activities and Societies: Courses followed: - Bioenergy - Industrial Biotechnology - Synthetic Organic Chemistry

Bachelor Of Bioscience Engineering, Chemistry And Bioprocess Technology, Cum Laude