Investigation of value-added compounds derived from oak wood using hydrothermal processing techniques and comprehensive analytical approaches (HPLC, GC-MS, FT-IR, and NMR)

Abstract

In this study, slow pyrolysis of oak woods was carried out in a fixed bed tube reactor at four different temperatures ranging from 100 °C to 400 °C and at 5 °C/min speed time intervals. The compositions of the produced bio-tar and bio-oils were determined in detail using FT-IR, GC-MS, HPLC, and NMR devices. Several pyrolysis parameters were carried out to reveal the distribution of pyrolytic products under different pyrolysis temperatures (100–400 °C) and times (1–4 h). During the slow pyrolysis process, oak wood started to decompose to form organic volatile products at a set temperature of 100 °C and reached a maximum yield of volatile products at around 400 °C. GC-MS analyses revealed that different valuable components such as furans, phenolic compounds, carbonyls, linear, aromatic compounds, acids, and hydrocarbons have been formed. Based on the experimental results of the pyrolysis, it has been detected that the temperature and time interval are very effective parameters in the conversion of oak wood to the amount of liquid product.