Each year, Indonesia produces about 100 million tonnes of the rice straw, and around 60 per cent of this waste is burned in open fields, causing air pollution which has been linked to higher rates of lung cancer.
The amount burned releases enough energy, if it could be harnessed, to power Indonesia’s households 10 times over.
A research consortium which includes Aston University aims to develop processes to capture more affordable energy from rice straw than ever before and demonstrate that it can be done on a commercial scale.
Part of the process involves a biomass conversion technology called pyrolysis. This involves heating organic waste materials to high temperatures of around 500°C to break them down, producing vapour and solid products.
Some of the vapour may be condensed into a liquid product called pyrolysis oil or pyrolysis bio-oil. Both the pyrolysis vapour and liquid bio-oil can be converted to electricity.
Current methods convert just 35 per...