Abstract
For the purpose of producing biocrude from pretreated and washed sweet sorghum bagasse, hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) was conducted with six different catalysts at two temperatures. The six catalysts were: K2CO3, KOH, formic acid, Ni/SiAl, Ni2P and zeolite. The two temperatures were 300 and 350°C. Based on two selection criteria, high yield of biocrude and low yield of biochar, K2CO3, KOH, and Ni/SiAl were identified as the best catalysts which led to biocrude yields of 61.8%, 42.3% and 45.0% at 300°C, respectively. As the best catalyst, K2CO3 led to biocrude samples with higher heating values (HHVs) of 33.1MJ/kg. This biocrude had high carbon content and low contents of nitrogen and sulfur based on elemental analysis. However, the relatively high content of oxygen around 15% requires the biocrudes to be upgraded before refinery ready. Key compounds identified in these biocrudes will assist future effort in upgrading. Overall, this study proved that the pretreated bagasse is a suitable feedstock for HTL for generating biocrude. Through a simple dilute acid pretreatment step and HTL of the resulting solid, every component of sorghum bagasse can be used for producing biofuels.
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