Assessment of Biogas and Syngas Potentials of Cotton Stalks in Turkey

English (OpenAlex)

Turkey, being one of the largest producers of world cotton production, utilizes biomass through direct incineration for electricity generation which accounts for 1.5% of the total electricity generation in Turkey. In this work, biogas potential of cotton stalks was assessed to present a foresight to the future biomass valorizations in the country. Cotton stalks harvested in six cities located in the Southeastern, Aegean and Çukurova regions of Turkey were evaluated and discussed with respect to their potential in electricity generation and the invoiced electricity consumption in 2019. These cities were found to yield 15.6 million tonnes of cotton stalks with an annual 3.1 billion m3 of methane and also, 12 TWh of electricity generation that could meet almost 32% of the electricity demand. For Southeastern region, region’s electricity consumption could be met by 99.5% with the anaerobic digestion of cotton stalks (9 million tonnes/yr). Methane potentials of cotton stalks were compared with the corresponding syngas yields and lower percentages were obtained for syngas. Anaerobic digestion and thermochemical conversion of agricultural residues, being proposed as energy strategies in this study, could help to accelerate the activities on bioenergy share in Turkey.