Abstract
The utilization of charcoal from woody biomass is an efficient way to reduce CO2 emissions from the metallurgical industry. The main aim of this work is to study the charcoal production process from torrefied biomass. For this purpose, torrefaction (3 °C min−1, 250 °C, 30 min) and carbonization (3 °C min−1, 750 °C, 30 min) experiments of eucalyptus wood were carried out in a 3.5 L tank reactor. In the carbonization experiments, a thermo-catalytic treatment of the vaporized phase was also performed, with the objective of producing less condensates and H2-rich gases. The results show that the torrefaction pre-treatment does not affect the chemical properties of charcoal but significantly improves the performance of the carbonization process, where more than 50 wt% of charcoal is obtained. In addition, the thermal and thermo-catalytic treatment of the vaporized phase during the carbonization of torrefied biomass yields better results than in the case of fresh biomass. When torrefied biomass is used as raw material and the reforming catalyst is employed to treat the vapors and gases, a proportion of 71 vol% of H2 in the gases is achieved, together with very low quantities of condensates (8.0 wt%). This allows designing a carbonization process in which, in addition to charcoal, pure H2 can also be produced.
Highlights
The metallurgical industry is a very energy-demanding sector and generates approximately one-third of the industrial CO2 emissions into the atmosphere
The results presented in the first column of Table 2 are those obtained in a carbonization process at 750 ◦ C, where the gases and vapors are thermally treated at 900 ◦ C in contact with a charcoal bed
The torrefaction of woody biomass generates more than 50 wt% of an improved solid product, without moisture, with less volatility, higher carbon content, and higher heating value than the fresh biomass
Summary
The metallurgical industry is a very energy-demanding sector and generates approximately one-third of the industrial CO2 emissions into the atmosphere. Carbonization is a simple process from a technological point of view It consists in the slow heating of the material in the absence of oxygen to temperatures >700 ◦ C; in other words, a slow pyrolysis process focused on maximizing the solid yield. It must be mentioned that wood charcoal cannot replace fossil coal in all applications, much less replace coke. It can be used in specific applications, e.g., metallurgical rotary kilns, or blended with coal/coke in certain percentages. This already means important savings in terms of CO2 emissions due to the climate-neutral nature of wood charcoal [2,4,5]
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