Abstract
Agricultural residue is a readily available biomass source for making biofuels. However, complex structure along with low calorific value makes it reluctant to be utilized. This necessitates the pretreatment of biomass to improve its accessibility. In this study, rice straws were treated with saturated steam at 180–200 °C for 5–10 min and pelletized. Results indicated that the pretreatment process could effectively improve the calorific values and enhance the hydrophobicity of the rice straws. The steam explosion process changed the content of chemical components in the biomass materials. With the increase of reaction temperature and retention time, the content of cellulose, hemicelluloses and lignin declined. Comparedwith the raw materials, there was an increase in the calorific value from 16.24 MJ/kg to 17.26 MJ/kg for the steam treated straws. For moisture sorption test under the condition of 30 °C and 90% relative humidity, the equilibrium moisture content dropped from 21% for untreated straw pellets to 14.2% for the steam treated straw pellets treated at 200 °C for 10 min. Moisture adsorption rate reduced along with the increase in steam temperature and retention time. This study demonstrated that steam explosion performed an effective way to improve the characteristics of agricultural residues.
Highlights
Renewable resource such as biomass appears to be an attractive feedstock in today’s world, due to its sufficiency and criteria air pollutant emissions as compared to fossil fuels
Hemicellulose hydrolyzed to sugars and lignin can betransformed to some extent, making the steam explodedmaterials more degradable
Results showed that the energy value and hydrophobicity of straws were enhanced
Summary
Renewable resource such as biomass appears to be an attractive feedstock in today’s world, due to its sufficiency and criteria air pollutant emissions as compared to fossil fuels. Biomass used as clean energy to generate electricity and heat has become an important element of sustainability nowadays [1]. A large amount of biomass in the form of crop residues is harvested annually in China. The utilization of the crop straws has been low over the past decades. A portion of straws were combusted directly in the field, which caused severe air pollution [2]. It is essential to utilize the agricultural straws to meet the increasing demand for renewable energy and minimize the environmental pollutions
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