Cornstalk pyrolysis for syngas in a two-stage electromagnetic induction reactor

Abstract

To utilize the promising green electricity from regenerable energies and promote the production of chemicals from biomass generated syngas, this work studies rapid high-temperature cornstalk (CS) pyrolysis in a two-stage reactor heated by electromagnetic induction under 398 kHz. The induction medium in the first stage is an iron rod immersed in CS particles while that for the second stage is a set of 304 stainless steel nets for the conversion of CS generated volatiles. The pyrolysis experiments were carried out at different heating rates, power in puts, volatile reaction times and overall pyrolysis times. The yields of char, oil, H2O, gas and coke, as well as the gas composition were discussed. It is found that the temperatures of rod and nets reach to higher than 1000 °C in 49 and 9 s, respectively, and the CS pyrolysis and the volatiles reaction can be accomplished in 5 min. The second stage effectively converts 94.8 % oil to gas and coke, with the participation of H2O. The final products in 5 min include 69.6 wt% gas, 15.6 wt% char, 7.8 wt% coke, 2.2 wt% oil and 4.8 wt% H2O, while the gas mainly contained 45.7 % H2 and 43.8 % CO in volume, respectively.