Fabio Leal Mendes

Comprehensive two dimensional gas chromatography with fast-quadrupole mass spectrometry detector analysis of polar compounds extracted from the bio-oil from the pyrolysis of sawdust

In this paper it is studied the most polar fractions of bio-oil produced by fast pyrolysis of Lignocel BK40-90 (sawdust from forest timber). The biomass was submitted to the pyrolysis in an existing FCC pilot plant that was adapted for this procedure. The equipment consists of a fluidized bed reactor with nitrogen injection. The unit operates with continuous biomass feeding and continuous solids circulation. The produced bio-oil was submitted to an aqueous alkaline extraction, isolating the acidic compounds that were analyzed by one-dimensional gas chromatography and comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography with quadrupole mass spectrometry detection (qMS). One hundred and thirty compounds (mainly phenols and ketones) were tentatively identified in the extract, some of them by the use of retention indexes. The main differences between chromatographic techniques were the substantial increasing in the peak capacity of GC×GC and the resolution of some co-elutions that occurred in GC/qMS. It is also possible to conclude that this extract is rich in important raw materials for the chemical industry and can be used for this end.

Production of lignocellulosic gasoline using fast pyrolysis of biomass and a conventional refining scheme

Abstract This paper shows how some existing refining technologies such as fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) can be modified to process bio-oil, derived from agricultural lignocellulosic wastes such as the sugar cane straw. Tests carried out in demonstration scale (150 kg/h) show the potential of these alternative materials to produce lignocellulosic gasoline or aromatic compounds, suitable to the petrochemical industry.

Quantification of real thermal, catalytic, and hydrodeoxygenated bio-oils via comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography with mass spectrometry

The elucidation of bio-oil composition is important to evaluate the processes of biomass conversion and its upgrading, and to suggest the proper use for each sample. Comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography with time-of-flight mass spectrometry (GC×GC-TOFMS) is a widely applied analytical approach for bio-oil investigation due to the higher separation and resolution capacity from this technique. This work addresses the issue of analytical performance to assess the comprehensive characterization of real bio-oil samples via GC×GC-TOFMS. The approach was applied to the individual quantification of compounds of real thermal (PWT), catalytic process (CPO), and hydrodeoxygenation process (HDO) bio-oils. Quantification was performed with reliability using the analytical curves of oxygenated and hydrocarbon standards as well as the deuterated internal standards. The limit of quantification was set at 1ngµL-1 for major standards, except for hexanoic acid, which was set at 5ngµL-1. The GC×GC-TOFMS method provided good precision (<10%) and excellent accuracy (recovery range of 70-130%) for the quantification of individual hydrocarbons and oxygenated compounds in real bio-oil samples. Sugars, furans, and alcohols appear as the major constituents of the PWT, CPO, and HDO samples, respectively. In order to obtain bio-oils with better quality, the catalytic pyrolysis process may be a better option than hydrogenation due to the effective reduction of oxygenated compound concentrations and the lower cost of the process, when hydrogen is not required to promote deoxygenation in the catalytic pyrolysis process.