Characterization of Biochar Properties Affected by Different Pyrolysis Temperatures Using Visible-Near-Infrared Spectroscopy

Abstract

Rapid characterization of biochar for energy and ecological purpose utilization is fundamental. In this work, visible and near-infrared (vis-NIR) spectroscopy was used to measure ash, volatile matter, fixed carbon contents, and calorific value of three types of biochar produced from pine wood, cedar wood, and cotton stalk, respectively. The vis-NIR spectroscopy was also used to discriminate biochar feedstock types and pyrolysis temperature. Prediction result shows that partial least squares (PLS) regression calibrating the spectra to the values of biochar properties achieved very good or excellent performance with coefficient of determination (R2) of 0.86~0.91 and residual prediction deviation (RPD) of 2.58~3.32 for ash, volatile matter, and fixed carbon, and good prediction with R2 of 0.81 and RPD of 2.30 for calorific value. Linear discrimination analysis (LDA) of the principal components (PCs) produced from PCA of wavelength matrix shows that three types of biochar can be successfully discriminated with 95.2% accuracy. The classification of biochar with different pyrolysis temperatures can be conducted with 69% accuracy for all three types and 100% accuracy for single type of cotton stalk. This experiment suggests that the vis-NIR spectroscopy is promising as an alternative of traditionally quantitative and qualitative analysis of biochar properties.