Pyrolysis of forestry biomass and its effect over bed arrangements and thickness for the production of fuels

Abstract

The present study highlights the performance of forestry biomass namely Babool wood, Chinaberry wood and Catalpa wood in a fixed bed reactor with varied biomass bed thickness and spacing between consecutive beds. Results revealed that several operating parameters including temperature, particle size, and heating rate greatly affected the pyrolysis process. Increasing the operating temperature from 500 °C to 600 °C increased the gaseous yield, while at low temperatures (350–450 °C), the liquid and char yields decreased due to removal of volatile fractions. Further, to improve the efficiency of the reactor, the biomass was placed in different bed arrangements. Results revealed that all the biomass were significant and gave highest yield of liquid products with four-bed arrangement. This study provides the insight of hardwood biomass having good thermal characteristics that makes them suitable for the production of fuels economically with low energy consumption.