Production of biocrudes from biomass in a fixed-bed tubular reactor: product yields and compositions

✍ Scribed by A.E Pütün; A Özcan; H.F Gerçel; E Pütün

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2001
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 148 KB
• Volume: 80
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0016-2361
• DOI: 10.1016/s0016-2361(01)00021-7

✦ Synopsis

Fixed-bed pyrolysis in a tubular reactor were conducted on three biomass samples, Euphorbia rigida, sun¯ower (Helianthus annuus L.) pressed bagasse and hazelnut (Corylus avellana) shells, to determine the possibility of each being a potential source of renewable fuels and chemical feedstocks. The effects of pyrolysis temperature and sweep gas (N 2 ) ¯ow rate on the pyrolysis yields and chemical compositions of the biocrudes obtained were investigated. The maximum biocrude yield of 45.7 wt% was obtained from sun¯ower pressed bagasse in N 2 atmosphere at a pyrolysis temperature of 823 K and ®xed heating rate of 7 K min 21 . However, this biocrude yield can be compared with the biocrude of Euphorbia rigida (31.5 wt%) at optimum conditions. The biocrude yield of sun¯ower pressed bagasse increased by 26.4% as the ®nal temperature was increased from 673 to 823 K whereas the biocrude yield of Euphorbia rigida increased by 30.8% more than sun¯ower pressed bagasse when the ®nal temperature was increased from 673 to 823 K. The pyrolysis products were characterized by elemental analysis, high performance size exclusion chromatography (HPSEC) and 1 H NMR spectroscopy, and also compared with the currently utilized transport fuels by simulated distillation. The pentane subfractions of biocrudes were analyzed for the quanti®cation of hydrocarbons by gas chromatography. The chemical characterizations have shown that the biocrudes obtained from Euphorbia rigida, sun¯ower pressed bagasse and hazelnut shells were quite similar to crude oil and shale oil.