Ren Zhengwei

Comparison of effect of ferric sulfide catalyst and nickel sulfide on coliquefaction of coal and biomass

Abstract Coliquefaction of coal and sawdust in the presence of catalysts was studied under cold hydrogen pressure from 2.04 to 4.76 MPa in the temperature range of 300–400 °C. In terms of overall conversion, yields and increment values from comparisons, investigations were made on catalysts of the sulfides of Fe, Ni and Cu and the methods of catalyst preparation. As economics of the technological process is concerned, a catalyst of ferric sulfide is preferred, apart from its advantages over the catalyst of nickel sulfides in catalytic effects under three sets of reaction conditions from our experiments. The optimal operation conditions were concluded for the preferred catalyst FeS x .

Acid pretreatment of bagasse pith at low temperature with steam-assisted heating

In this paper, dilute acid pretreatment of bagasse pith was investigated at low temperature. Process parameters varied including mass ratio of liquid to solid (r = 6:1–12:1 l/kg), reaction temperature (T = 100 °C–130 °C), and acid concentration (c = 0.75 wt. %–1.5 wt. %) in order to effectively transform hemicellulose to fermentable sugar to improve the utilization of bagasse pith. The effects of dilute acid pretreatment were evaluated by fermentable sugar yield and decomposition products concentration. The optimum pretreatment conditions for depolymerization of hemicellulose bagasse pith was obtained at r = 10:1 l/kg, T = 120 °C, c = 1.0 wt. %, t = 16 min. From this paper, it could be concluded that dilute acid pretreatment can be successfully applied to bagasse pith to achieve high yield of xylose (84.41%) with acceptable levels of fermentation inhibitors formation.