Abstract
Bio-oil is a major product of biomass pyrolysis that could potentially be used in motor engines, boilers, furnaces and turbines for heat and power. Upon catalytic upgrading, bio-oils can be used as transportation fuels due to enhancement of their fuel properties. In this study, bio-oils produced from lignocellulosic biomasses such as wheat straw, timothy grass and pinewood were estimated through slow and high heating rate pyrolysis at 450 °C. The slow heating rate (2 °C/min) pyrolysis resulted in low bio-oil yields and high amount of biochars, whereas the high heating rate (450 °C/min) pyrolysis produced significant amount of bio-oils with reduced biochar yields. The physico-chemical and compositional analyses of bio-oils were achieved through carbon-hydrogen-nitrogen-sulfur (CHNS) studies, calorific value, Fourier transform-infra red (FT-IR) spectroscopy, gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), electrospray ionization-mass spectrometry (ESI-MS) and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. The yields of bio-oils produced from the three biomasses were 40-48 wt.% through high heating rate pyrolysis and 18-24 wt.% through slow heating rate pyrolysis. The chemical components identified in bio-oils were classified into five major groups such as organic acids, aldehydes, ketones, alcohols and phenols. The percent intensities of hydrogen and carbon containing species were calculated from 1H and 13C-NMR. The study on bio-oils from herbaceous and woody biomasses revealed their potentials for fossil fuel substitution and bio-chemical production.
Highlights
Over the last few decades, interest in using biomass derived fuels has increased tremendously due to the concerns of global warming from anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases, climate change and reduction in fossil fuel reserves
The physico-chemical and compositional analyses of bio-oils were achieved through carbon-hydrogen-nitrogen-sulfur (CHNS) studies, calorific value, Fourier transform-infra red (FT-IR) spectroscopy, gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), electrospray ionization-mass spectrometry (ESI-MS) and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy
The bio-oil yields from wheat straw, timothy grass and pinewood were high in high heating rate (HHR) pyrolysis (40-48 wt.%) than slow heating rate (SHR) pyrolysis (18-24 wt.%)
Summary
Over the last few decades, interest in using biomass derived fuels has increased tremendously due to the concerns of global warming from anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases, climate change and reduction in fossil fuel reserves. A promising approach is to lower atmospheric CO2 while producing energy from bio-oil and biochar which are two major products of biomass pyrolysis (Brown, Wright, & Brown, 2011). Biomass utilization is one of the most cost-effective routes to carbon-neutral energy and is expected to be the source of immense practical value to produce renewable liquid fuels (He, Ye, English, & Satrio, 2009). Lignocellulosic biomasses have tremendous potentials in production of fuels and chemicals. These materials are available in surplus worldwide and do not compete with the food supply (Sukumaran et al, 2010). For the production of bio-oils, lignocellulosic biomasses are thermally degraded via pyrolysis at higher temperatures with varying heating rates (Czernik & Bridgwater, 2004)
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