Plasma electrolytic liquefaction of sawdust**Project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51877184).

Abstract

As a renewable carbon resource, biomass can be converted into polyols, aromatic hydrocarbons, alkanes, and other products by traditional catalytic liquefaction method, which has been widely used in production and life. The efficient development and utilization of biomass energy will play a very positive role in solving the problems of energy and ecological environment. A way of combining the plasma electrolysis with traditional catalytic liquefaction realizes the efficient liquefaction of sawdust, which provides a new liquefaction way for traditional biomass conversion. In this experiment, the effects of solution composition, catalyst content and power supply on solution resistance and liquefaction rate are analyzed. It is found that solution composition and catalyst content have a great influence on solution resistance. The results show that the liquefaction rate is highest and the resistance is smallest when the solution resistance is 500 Ω. The liquefaction rate is greatly affected by the solution temperature, and the solution temperature is determined by the output power between the two electrodes. The output power includes the heating power of the electric field and the discharge power of the plasma. We measure the electric potential field distribution in the solution and the plasma power. It is found that the output power between the two poles increases nonlinearly (from 0 to 270 W) with time. In two minutes, the electric field heating power increases from 0 to 105 W and then decreases to 70 W, while the plasma power increases from 0 to 200 W. It is well known that in the first 70 seconds of the experiment the electric field heating is dominant, and then the plasma heating turns into a main thermal source. In this paper, plasma electrolysis and traditional catalytic liquefaction are combined to achieve the efficient liquefaction of sawdust, which provides a new way for biomass liquefaction.