Valorization of banana peel waste via in-situ catalytic pyrolysis using Al-Modified SBA-15

Abstract

The present study is aimed to investigate thermal and catalytic pyrolysis of banana peel. In the first part of the study, banana peel was pyrolyzed by varying the temperatures between 400 and 700 °C. It was seen that higher temperature caused in lower bio-oil and bio-char yields but higher gas yields and optimum temperature was determined as 550 °C. In the second part, the mesoporous material Al-SBA-15 with the typical hexagonal arrangement of SBA-15 verified via XRD possesses Lewis and Brönsted acid sites (NH3-TPD), large surface area and wide pore diameter (N2 physisorption) was able to catalyzing of banana peel biomass resulting in bio-oil yields of 18–28% with varying catalyst/biomass ratios (0, 5, 10, 15, 20 wt%). The highest bio-oil yield from the catalytic pyrolysis was 18.64% with 15 wt% catalyst/biomass ratios. The composition and physical properties of the bio-oils were reported that the catalyst increased oxygen removal from the bio-oil and also developed the production of desirable products like phenolics and aromatic compounds. The results confirmed the catalytic pyrolysis of banana peel was well related to the textural properties of catalysts.