Sucrose-calcium Complexation for the Durable Biomass Pellet

Abstract

Due to their environmental friendliness, woodbased biomass pellets are widely used as conventional fuel sources in daily life and in various industries. Durability and proper mechanical strength are important quality factors for practical applications of biomass pellets as they enable their easy handling, transportation, and storage. In the present study, to increase mechanical strength of sawdust biomass pellet fuels, sucrose was employed as a main binder material. In addition, calcium ions were included as cross-linkers, which improved capability of modified binders. Even though sucrose alone enabled production of pellets with comparatively high compressive strength, addition of several calcium-containing substances further improved mechanical properties of sawdust pellets. Interestingly, we found that a combination of sucrose with CaCl2 (acidic blended solution) decreased, whereas addition of CaO or Ca(OH)2 (basic blended solution) considerably enhanced pellet strength. Thus, we concluded that calcium ions are able to form stable complexes with sucrose at basic pH levels (>10). Therefore, materials incorporating sucrose-calcium complexes can be successfully used as eco-friendly novel binders for the construction of durable biomass pellet fuels. Furthermore, their applications can be extended to formulations of nutritional or pharmaceutical substances.