Transformation and release of potassium during fixed-bed pyrolysis of biomass

Abstract

To study the release and transformation of fuel K during rapid pyrolysis of biomass, wheat straw, corn stalk and rice hull are pyrolyzed in a fixed-bed reactor system during 400–1000 °C, and weight measurement, elemental composition analysis, and chemical fractionation analysis are performed. The effects of fuel type, pyrolysis temperature, co-pyrolysis of different fuels, and water washing pretreatment are discussed. The results show that for all biomass fuels, the released K is far less than the water-soluble K and a sudden increase occurs in the fraction of ion-exchangeable K at 400 °C, whereas a significant increase happens in the fraction of insoluble K above 800 °C. Wheat straw releases less than 5% of K at 400 and 500 °C. As temperature rises, the K release increases abruptly and around 40% of K enters the gas phase at 1000 °C. Rice hull has a slow and linear K release with increasing pyrolysis temperature. Corn stalk has the lowest K release during 400–800 °C. Co-pyrolysis of wheat straw and rice hull reduce the K release at 1000 °C, and the biggest decrement is 0.76 mg g−1. Water washing removes all the water-soluble K of corn stalk and part of ion-exchangeable K enters the gas phase during pyrolysis of the washed sample. Water washing decreases the K release from 2.77 to 0.18 mg g−1 at 1000 °C.