Eva Thorin

• PhD
• Professor (Full) at Mälardalen University

In this study calculation over material and energy balances for bio-refinery product upgrading using membrane filtration (MF, UF, and RO), distillation, and ion-exchanger has been performed. Tests have been made with UF filtration in a pilot plant, separation tests made at lab with ion-exchanger and simulation using ASPEN plus simulator for distill...

There is a demand to remove CO2 from thermal plants to abate global warming. At the same time authorities demand treating wastewater to remove nitrogen and phosphorus and also to produce food. By combining algae farming at a power plant and using nutrients from the wastewater, actions to meet all these demands can be combined to a win-win situation...

Amid the global energy and climate crises, phasing out fossil fuel has become an international priority. Nuclear energy is re-emerging as a fundamental constituent of several countries’ energy mixes. Sweden has updated its policy towards expanding its nuclear energy as a reflection of this global trend, but also due to national political shifts and...

The energy transition towards sustainable resources is more urgent than ever given the environmental and geopolitical challenges. Being one of the major energy users, cities need to understand their energy sector to accomplish its transition, by means of data. However, data are not easily accessible and have their own challenges. This paper present...

Cadmium (Cd) is a highly toxic metal, occurring in municipal wastewater and stormwater as well as in wastewater from various industries. Char derived from the pyrolysis of municipal sewage sludge has the potential to be a low-cost sorption media for the removal of Cd. However, the balance between possible local char production and demand has not be...

Emerging negative emission technologies (NETs) are considered as effective measures to reduce carbon dioxide emissions to achieve the climate goal set by the Paris Agreement, and bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) is one of the most important NETs. Integrating CO2 capture with biomass pyrolysis (PyrCC) is attracting increasing intere...

There has been an increased interest in the production of sustainable biochar in the past years, as biochar show versatile physicochemical properties and therefore can have a wide applicability in diverse fields. Comprehensive studies have been made to characterize biochar produced from various biomass materials, usingdifferent production technolog...

Technologies developed for capturing CO2 from combustion of fossil fuels (FFCC) can also be applied to capture of CO2 from combustion of biomass (BECC). However, due to the obvious different fuel properties, the performance of the capture technologies can be quite different. This work investigates the performance differences when using chemical abs...

The concerns about climate change, energy security and price fluctuation of fossil fuels are driving the growing interest in the development and utilization of renewable energy as a transportation fuel. In this aspect, the utilization of organic household waste for the production of biogas avoids the environmental impact of landfills. The further u...

The share of renewable energy sources in the primary energy use is increasing worldwide. Given the intermittency of the energy supply from renewables, it is important to increase flexibility in the system to respond to the imbalances between energy demand and supply. Several flexibility options such as power storage and energy integration are curre...

Resource reuse has become an important aspect of wastewater management. At present, use of sludge in agriculture is one of the major reuse routes. Conventional municipal wastewater treatment does not involve any designated process for removal of heavy metals, and these distribute mainly between effluent and sludge. Enhanced removal of heavy metals...

Municipal wastewater management causes metal exposure to humans and the environment. Targeted metal removal is suggested to reduce metal loads during sludge reuse and release of effluent to receiving waters. Biochar is considered a low-cost sorbent with high sorption capacity for heavy metals. In this study, heavy metal sorption to sludge-derived b...

Over the past few years, there has been increasing research interest in retrofitting existing combined heat and power (CHP) plants with new technologies to co-produce other products. The focus has been on the design of fixed-sized processes for integration into CHP plants without affecting their performance. The primary objective of this study was...

The growing share of intermittent renewable energy sources for power generation indicates an increasing demand for flexibility in the energy system. Energy storage technologies ensure a balance between demand and supply and increase the system flexibility. This study investigates increased application of renewable energy resources at a regional sca...

Handling sludge through thermal conversion is environmentally friendly, which, however, requires sludge drying. This work proposed to use the waste heat of flue gas (FG) to dry sludge. The integration of sludge drying in biomass fueled combined heat and power (CHP) plants can clearly affect the performance of downstream processes in FG cleaning, su...

Process design is a challenging task for researchers and engineers. Incomplete information and variation in input data affect the outputs and reliability of key performance indicators (KPIs) of the designed process. The efficient utilization of waste is becoming increasingly important, and researchers use simulation and modelling tools for design a...

A comparison of different techniques for nitrogen recovery from wastewater to draw conclusions on economic and energetic benefits

In Northern Europe, the production of many biobased CHP plants is getting affected due to the enormous expansion of wind and solar power. In addition, heat demand varies throughout the year, and existing CHP plants show less technical performance and suffer economically. By integrating the existing CHP plants with other processes for the production...

The gasification process is found to be more efficient when integrated with existing CHP plants than a standalone gasification process to produce biofuels. In this study, we gather the data from our previous studies about biofuel production form gasification-CHP polygeneration systems and apply the multi-criteria decision analysis to assess five di...

This study is part of an investigation on the influences of future energy demand and increased application of renewable resources on production planning of a regional energy system in the central part of Sweden. The study addresses the impacts of power supply from rooftop solar cells, increased application of heat pumps and penetration of electric...

The increasing atmospheric CO2 concentration has caused a transformative shift in global energy systems, which is contributing to an increased use of renewables. Sweden is among the countries trying to shift to a fossil-fuel-free system in all energy sectors. This paper addresses the fuel demand and supply in the transportation sector in the county...

Providing the energy needs of the cumulatively increasing population has become a challenge for the regional energy systems in the world. The most critical challenge is to supply enough energy in the forms of heat and power during the cold and warm periods of the year with the lowest production cost and minimum environmental impacts. A solution is...

For biomass/waste fueled power plants, stricter regulations require a further reduction of the negative impacts on the environment caused by the release of pollutants and withdrawal of fresh water externally. Flue gas quench (FGQ) is playing an important role in biomass or waste fueled combined heat and power (CHP) plants, as it can link the flue g...

There are several restrictions and limitations on the emissions and disposal of materials and pollutants related to wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) emphasizing improvement of current processes and development of new methods. Process integration is one way to use all fractions of waste for improved efficiency. WWTPs produces sludge which is usua...

In this study, possible alternations in a regional transport sector are assessed to increase the use of renewable resources. Three scenarios are developed aimed to investigate different alternatives including potential straw-based bioethanol supply to fuel regional cars with combustion engines, more use of Electrical Vehicles (EVs) with use of pote...

Air pollution and increased CO2 concentration in atmosphere and other energy related issues caused a transformative shift in energy system which contributes to increased utilization of renewables as alternative to generate green energy carriers. The potential of renewable resources in different region and potential energy conversion have been large...

Future energy systems need to be more flexible. The use of cross-sector coupling in combination with thermal storage in thermal grids has been shown to provide such flexibility. The presented study reviews how short-term storage in district heating distribution networks is used or modelled for flexibility, what are the most important parameters, an...

Phosphorus (P) is one of the essential nutrients for production of food. In modern agriculture, a large part of P comes from finite sources. There are several suggested processes for reuse of P from wastewater. In this paper, the energy use of direct reuse of sludge in agriculture is compared to the energy demand connected to use of mineral P and t...

The anaerobic digestion of biodegradable fraction of municipal solid waste (MSW) is a widely used process for biogas production. However, the biodegradable fraction of MSW also contains lignocellulosic waste which hinders the biogas production if added to the digester in higher quantity. So it needs to be separated from biodegradable waste and sent...

Oxy-fuel combustion is one of the most promising technologies for CO2 capture for power plants. In oxy-fuel combustion plants, cryogenic process can be applied for CO2 purification because the main impurities in flue gas are non-condensable gases. The multi-stream plate-fin heat exchanger is one of the most important components in the CO2 cryogenic...

A mix of microalgae and bacteria was cultivated on pre-sedimented municipal wastewater in a continuous operated microalgae-activated sludge process. The excess material from the process was co-digested with primary sludge in mesophilic and thermophilic conditions in semi-continuous mode (5 L digesters). Two reference digesters (5 L digesters) fed w...

Phosphorus (P) is one of the essential nutrients for production of food. In modern agriculture, a large part of P comes from finite sources. There are several suggested processes for reuse of P from wastewater. In this paper, the energy use of direct reuse of sludge in agriculture is compared to the energy demand connected to use of mineral P and t...

Recent improvements in low-temperature heat-to-power (LTHtP) technologies have led to an increase in efficiency at lower temperatures and lower cost. LTHtP has so far not been used in district heating. The aim of the study is to establish under what conditions the use of existing LTHtP technology is technically and economically feasible using a dis...

We investigate a process concept where biochar, produced from primary sludge, is reused as a metal adsorbent in primary treatment. Biochar has been extensively studied as an efficient low cost-adsorbent of heavy metals in treatment of industrial wastewater. Metal concentrations are often many times higher in industrial wastewaters compared to munic...

In this paper, we are presenting results from our work on finding the suitable ways for the disposal of sewage sludge generated in wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). Due to regulations and restrictions on landfilling and agricultural use of sewage sludge, there is a niche for finding alternative pathways for utilization of sludge. Thermochemical...

Renewable energy is well recognized not only as resource that helps to protect the environment for future generations but also as a driver for development. Waste-to-energy systems can provide renewable energy and also improve sustainability in waste management. This article contributes a case study of stepwise reconfiguration of the waste managemen...

Biofuels are a good substitute for the transport sector petroleum fuels to minimize carbon footprint and greenhouse gases emissions. Di-Methyl Ether (DME) is one such alternative with properties similar to liquefied petroleum gas but with lower SOx, NOx, and particulate emissions. In this work, a polygeneration process, integrating an existing comb...

The utilization of digestate from anaerobic digestion (AD) processes offers the possibility to recycle nutrient from organic waste materials back to the food chain. However, digestates are characterized by a high water content resulting in high storage capacities and transportation costs. Various organic wastes such as organic municipal solid waste...

Population growth and urbanization have led to increases in energy demand and consequently, greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, the availability of the fossil fuel as the main source of energy supply has been changed. Utilization of renewable resources including solar, wind, and hydropower together with distributed energy systems could eliminate t...

Recent improvements in heat-to-power (HtP) technologies have led to an increase in efficiency at lower temperatures and lower cost. HtP is used extensively in power generation via the steam Rankine cycle, but so far has not been used in district heating (DH). The aim of the study is to analyze the economic feasibility of using HtP technologies in a...

CO2 makes a major contribution to the climate change, and biomass renewable energy and carbon capture and storage (CCS) can be deployed to mitigate the CO2 emission. Cryogenic process for biogas upgrading combined with carbon capture is one of the most promising technologies. This paper reviewed the state-of-the-art of cryogenic systems for biogas...

In this study a natural mix of microalgae grown in wastewater of municipal character was co-digested with sewage sludge in mesophilic conditions, in both batch and semi-continuous modes. The semi-continuous experiment was divided into two periods with OLR1 (organic loading rate) of 2.4 kg volatile solids (VS) m-3 d-1 and HRT1 (hydraulic retention t...

It is vital to identify and evaluate the optimal gasifier configuration that could be integrated with existing or new combined heat and power (CHP) plants to maximize the utilization of boiler operating capacity during off-peak hours with minimal effect on the boiler performance. This study aims to identify technically and economically most suitabl...

Organic waste is a good source of clean energy. However, different fractions of waste have to be utilized efficiently. One way is to find pathways to convert waste into useful products via various available processes (gasification, pyrolysis anaerobic digestion, etc.) and integrate them to increase the combined efficiency of the process. The syngas...

The primary and secondary sludge from a wastewater treatment plant are generally mixed and treated combined. Here we introduce an idea for a process concept where the sludge flows are separated and the treatment of primary sludge is modified, with the goal to concentrate micropollutants in primary sludge while nutrients are removed in the secondary...

The effective technology for capturing CO2 at the low concentration is chemical absorption, due to the high reactivity between CO2 and aqueous amine solutions. To capture CO2, the process involves complex reactive separations. The accurate calculation of hydrodynamic properties, and mass and energy transfer are of importance for the design of the a...

In Sweden the utilization of household waste for energy purposes is quite significant already today. Individuals sort the household waste in different fractions where the organic biologically degradable material is separated into one fraction, while other type of combustible materials into one or more fractions. The rest of the waste is normally go...

One of the keys available options for the large scale carbon capture and storage is the solvent-based post-combustion capture. Due to the high reactivity between CO2 and aqueous amine solutions, chemical absorption is suitable for capturing the CO2 at low concentration such as from the flue gas. From techno-economic analyses of the CO2 chemical abs...

In municipal wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs), algae could be utilised for cleaning the water and, at the same time, produce a biomass that can be used for energy. Through anaerobic digestion, microalgae can contribute to biogas production when co-digested with sewage sludge. In this paper, previous published results on the co-digestion of sewag...

Anaerobic co-digestion plant with biodegradable organic feedstock separated from municipal solid waste (MSW) have become a mature technology in past decade. The biogas produced can be upgraded to bio-methane or used in heat and power applications. However, not all the municipal waste fractions such as ligno-cellulose and green waste, are suitable f...

The anaerobic digestion of source-separated organic waste is a mature and increasingly used process for biomethane production. However, the efficient use of different fractions of waste is a big concern in anaerobic digestion plants. This study proposes the use of a new process configuration that couples the anaerobic digestion of biodegradable was...

It is vital to perform system analysis on integrated biomass gasification in chemical recovery systems in pulp and paper and heat and power plants for polygeneration applications. The proposed integration complements existing pulp and paper and heat and power production systems with production of chemicals such as methane and hydrogen. The potentia...

The cryogenic process is used for CO2 purification in oxy-fuel combustion power plant, and multi-stream heat exchanger is one of the most important components. Viscosity and thermal conductivity are key transport properties in the design of plate-fin multi-stream heat exchanger. It is necessary to evaluate the impacts of viscosity and thermal condu...

Microalgae cultivated in waste water could contribute to increased biomass production at municipal waste water treatment plants. The biomass could be utilized for biogas production when co-digested with sewage sludge. In this paper previous published results on co-digestion of sewage sludge and microalgae are summarized and remaining knowledge gaps...

The transport sector accounts for the second biggest greenhouse gas emission in the European Union (EU). In order to achieve the target of CO2 emission reduction there is a rapid growing interest in using biomethane as fuel for transport applications. Biomethane can be produced through anaerobic digestion or biomass gasification. Anaerobic digestio...

Post–combustion capture with chemical absorption shows higher potential for commercial scale application compared with other technologies. To capture CO2 from the industrial and power plant's flue gases, aqueous alkanolamine solutions are widely used. However, several drawbacks from utilizing the aqueous alkanolamines such as MEA still need to be s...

Viscosity and thermal conductivity are key transport properties in the design of plate-fin multi-stream heat exchanger in CO2 cryogenic processes. It is necessary to evaluate the reliabilities of viscosity and thermal conductivity models. In addition, the differences in design of multi-stream heat exchanger by using different property models need t...

There is a potential to integrate biomass gasification with pulp & paper and CHP plants in order to complement the existing systems with production of chemicals, such as methane, hydrogen, and methanol etc. To perform system analysis of such integration, it is important to gain knowledge of relevant input data on expected synthesis gas composition...

The multi-stream plate-fin heat exchanger is one of the most important components in the CO2 cryogenic system. Appropriate design methodology and in-depth analysis of property on the heat exchanger are of importance. This paper, as part I of the two-paper series, presented the design procedure for the multi-stream plate-fin heat exchanger in CO2 cr...

A case study is described in which the activated sludge process is replaced with a microalgae-activated sludge process. The effects on the heat and electricity consumption and carbon dioxide emissions were evaluated in a system model, based on mass and energy balances of biological treatment and sludge handling process steps. Data for use in the mo...

This study investigated the possibility of using a model based on the anaerobic digestion model no. 1 (ADM1) on a full-scale 4000 m³ digester in order to understand how such theoretical models can be applied to a real industrial process. The industrial scale digester co-digests the organic fraction of municipal solid waste, grease trap sludge, and...

Syngas containing H2, CO, CO2 and CH4 produced by thermal processes such as gasification or pyrolysis is typically converted to methane via thermochemical methanation. This process is characterized by a high heat demand utilizing a sensitive chemical catalyst at increased pressure conditions. Alternatively, methanogenic archaea could be exploited a...

The mechanism of biomass gasification has been studied for decades. However, for circulating fluidized bed (CFB) gasifiers, the impacts of different parameters on the gas quality and gasifiers performance have still not been fully investigated. In this paper, different CFB gasifiers have been analyzed by multivariate analysis statistical tools to i...

Absorption of CO2 with aqueous amines in post-combustion capture is characterized as a heat and mass transfer processes with chemical reaction, which is sensitively affected by the thermo-physical properties of fluids. In order to optimize the design of the absorber of CO2 capture process, in this paper, the impacts of thermo-physical properties on...

A novel biorefinery concept was piloted using protein-rich slaughterhouse waste, chicken manure and straw as feedstocks. The basic idea was to provide a proof of concept for the production of platform chemicals and biofuels from organic waste materials at non-septic conditions. The desired biochemical routes were 2,3-butanediol and acetone-butanol...

To develop a model for biomass gasification in fluidized bed gasifiers with high accuracy and generality that could be used under various operating conditions, the equilibrium model (EM) is chosen as a general and case-independent modeling method. However, EM lacks sufficient accuracy in predicting the content (volume fraction) of four major compon...

The knowledge of thermodynamic and transport properties of CO2-mixtures is important for designing and operating different processes in carbon capture and storage systems. A literature survey was conducted to review the impact of uncertainty in thermos-physical properties on the design and operation of components and processes involved in CO2 captu...

The transport sector accounts for the second biggest greenhouse gas emission in the European Union (EU). In order to achieve the target of CO2 emission reduction there is a rapid growing interest in using biomethane as fuel for transport applications. Biomethane can be produced through anaerobic digestion or biomass gasification. Anaerobic digestio...

In the meat industries, it is always of high importance to follow up the zoonotic and other hazardous micro-organisms, and to prevent their risky distribution, emission and dissemination. Besides proper hygiene control, as well as organized exploitation of the side streams and slaughterhouse wastes helps in the hygienization of the biomasses, proce...

There is a rapid growing interest in using biomethane as fuel for transport applications. A new concept is proposed to combine anaerobic digestion and biomass gasification to produce biomethane. H2 is separated from the syngas generated by biomass gasification in a membrane system, and then is used to upgrade raw biogas from anaerobic digestion. Si...

Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) is one of the most potential technologies to mitigate climate change. Usingpipelinesto transport CO2 from emission sources to storage sitesis one of common and mature technologies. The design and operation of pipeline transport process requires careful considerations of thermo-physical properties.This paper studied...

Absorption of CO2 with aqueous amines in post-combustion capture is characterized as mass transfer process with chemical reaction. Hydrodynamics and mass transfer in gas and liquid phases in a packed columnhave significant influences on absorber design especially for the design of packing height. In this paper, the sensitivity study has been conduc...

Combined heat and power ( CHP ) is the simultaneous production of useful heat and power in an integrated process with common fuel or energy source. By integrating heat and power production, it is possible to use the energy source in a more efficient way and by that to reduce the environmental impact including CO 2 emissions. The basic process of a...

Microalgae can be used to assimilate nutrients from municipal wastewater and thereby reduce the amount of organic material, nitrogen and phosphorous that is transported with the wastewater to sensitive recipients. This can be made in high rate algal ponds (HRAP), e g., in USA and New Zeeland (Graggs et al., 2012) or with other types of microalgal-b...

Currently the use of solar energy for heating and cooling isn’t widespread. In order to reduce primary energy consumption in the built environment along with improving the thermal performance of the current building stock, retrofit solutions are required to utilise renewable energy. Using solar energy to reduce primary energy consumption is seen as...

Biogas production is probably the most feasible way of utilizing sewage sludge as energy source, simultaneously with nutrient recovery by recycling the biogas digestate (i.e. the residue) to arable land. However, the sludge commonly contains high amounts of human pathogenic bacteria excreted in faeces and urine. To use sludge as fertilizer on food...