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Keywords
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Biomass energy, Date palm, Cogeneration, Thermal desalination, Rankine cycle
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Abstract
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Date palm trees (Phoenix dactylifera L.) produce approximately 40 kg of burnable waste including dried
leaves, spathes, sheaths, and petioles annually. In this paper, the potential of date palm waste as a
bioenergy source has been investigated. As a sample project, a power plant has been preliminary
designed to simultaneously generate electrical power using a steam Rankine cycle and distilled water by
the thermal desalination of seawater using a multiple effect evaporator. The results indicated that a small
plant in Bushehr Province in southern Iran which burns 140,000 tons of waste annually can produce
approximately 62 GWh of electricity in conjunction with 2.27 million tons of distilled water. This production
is equivalent to 75 GWhe/year. Environmental assessments revealed that the use of this amount
of biomass leads to a net green-house gas (GHG) reduction of 40,500 tCO2/year.
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