Characterization of Size-Segregated Soot from Pine Wood Pyrolysis in a Drop Tube Furnace at 1300 °C

Abstract

This study deploys a Dekati low-pressure impactor (DLPI) to separate soot from pyrolysis of pine wood in a drop tube furnace at 1300 °C according to its aerodynamic diameter for subsequent characterization. Under the experimental conditions, it was determined that the total amount of pine wood fed into the reactor must be 150 mg or less for effective soot separation without overloading the DLPI. The result shows that the carbonaceous materials with aerodynamic diameters ≤10 μm (CM10) from pine wood pyrolysis have a unimodal distribution with a fine mode of 0.077 μm. The carbonaceous materials with aerodynamic diameters between 1 and 10 μm (CM1–10) are primarily char fragments but only account for 98% of the CM10 and is soot. Further analysis shows that the key elements present in soot (i.e., CM1) are Na, K, and Cl because of the condensation of these inorganic species during the cooling of flue gas or as the result from the...