Yuanquan Xiong

High quality syngas production from microwave pyrolysis of rice husk with char-supported metallic catalysts.

This study aimed to obtain the maximum possible gas yield and the high quality syngas production from microwave pyrolysis of rice husk with rice husk char and rice husk char-supported metallic (Ni, Fe and Cu) catalysts. The rice husk char-supported metallic catalysts had developed pore structure and catalytic activity for gas productions and tar conversion. The temperature-rising characteristic, product yields, properties of gas products and tar conversion mechanisms were investigated. It was found that three rice husk char-supported metallic catalysts improved the microwave absorption capability and increased heating rate and final temperature. Rice husk char-supported Ni catalyst presented most effective effects on gas production, e.g. the gas yield is 53.9%, and the volume concentration of desired syngas is 69.96%. Rice husk char-supported Ni and Fe catalysts played pivotal roles in tar conversion that less heavy compounds can be detected along with the reduction of organic compound number.

Effects of water washing and torrefaction on the pyrolysis behavior and kinetics of rice husk through TGA and Py-GC/MS.

The effects of water washing and torrefaction on the pyrolysis behavior and kinetics of rice husk were investigated through TGA and Py-GC/MS in this study. Two iso-conversional methods, i.e. Starink and FWO methods were applied for determination of the activation energy of original and pretreated rice husk samples at three different heating rates. It was found that activation energy of water washed rice husk was lower than that of original rice husk. Whereas, the activation energy increased with the increase of torrefaction temperature. The result of Py-GC/MS analysis indicated that both water washing and torrefaction pretreatments decreased the contents of acids, ketones, aldehydes and furans, while significantly increased the contents of sugars, especially levoglucosan. The relative content of released levoglucosan from pyrolysis of rice husk sample with combined water washing and 280°C torrefaction pretreatment is almost 9 times of that from original rice husk, which is about 3%.

Kinetics study on conventional and microwave pyrolysis of moso bamboo.

A comparative study on the pyrolysis kinetics of moso bamboo has been conducted in a conventional thermogravimetric analyzer and a microwave thermogravimetric analyzer respectively. The effect of heating rate on the pyrolysis process was also discussed. The results showed that both the maximum and average reaction rates increased with the heating rate increasing. The values of activation energy increased from 58.30 to 84.22 kJ/mol with the heating rate decreasing from 135 to 60 °C/min during conventional pyrolysis. The value of activation energy was 24.5 kJ/mol for microwave pyrolysis, much lower than that for conventional pyrolysis at a similar heating rate of 160 °C/min. The pyrolysis of moso bamboo exhibited a kinetic compensation effect. The low activation energy obtained under microwave irradiation suggests that microwaves heating would be a promising method for biomass pyrolysis.

Effects of water washing and torrefaction pretreatments on rice husk pyrolysis by microwave heating.

The influences of water washing, torrefaction and combined water washing-torrefaction pretreatments on microwave pyrolysis of rice husk samples were investigated. The results indicated that the process of combined water washing-torrefaction pretreatment could effectively remove a large portion of inorganics and improve the fuel characteristics to a certain extent. The gas products were rich in combustible compositions and the syngas quality was improved by pretreatment process. The liquid products contained less moisture content, acids and furans, while more concentrated phenols and sugars from microwave pyrolysis of rice husk after pretreatments, especially after the combined water washing-torrefaction pretreatment. Biochar, produced in high yield, has the alkaline pH (pH 8.2-10.0) and high surface area (S(BET) 157.81-267.84 m(2)/g), they have the potential to be used as soil amendments. It is noteworthy that water washing increased the pore surface area of biochar, but torrefaction reduced the pore surface area.

Effects of four types of dilute acid washing on moso bamboo pyrolysis using Py–GC/MS

The influences of four types of dilute acid washing (H2SO4, HCl, HF, HNO3) on moso bamboo pyrolysis were investigated via pyrolysis-gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (Py-GC/MS). The effects of acid washings on the inorganics contents and the chemical structure were also analyzed. The results indicated that all the acid washings could effectively remove a large portion of inorganics and disrupt the chemical structure to a certain extent. HCl-washing behaved the best in removing inorganics and had the most marked disruption effect on bamboo structure. Acid washings promoted the bamboo pyrolysis and increased the contents of both phenols and sugars. HCl-washing had the most significant promotion effect on the levoglucosan formation with the absolute peak area increasing from 8.12×10(8) to 1.92×10(9). The absolute peak areas of 2,3-dihydrobenzofuran decreased more or less after acid washings. All the acid washings except H2SO4-washing could significantly increase the absolute peak area of methoxyeugenol.

Physicochemical properties and combustion behavior of duckweed during wet torrefaction.

Wet torrefaction of duckweed was carried out in the temperature range of 130-250°C to evaluate the effects on physicochemical properties and combustion behavior. The physicochemical properties of duckweed samples were investigated by ultimate analysis, proximate analysis, FTIR, XRD and SEM techniques. It was found that wet torrefaction improved the fuel characteristics of duckweed samples resulting from the increase in fixed carbon content, HHVs and the decrease in nitrogen and sulfur content and atomic ratios of O/C and H/C. It can be seen from the results of FTIR, XRD and SEM analyses that the dehydration, decarboxylation, solid-solid conversion, and condensation polymerization reactions were underwent during wet torrefaction. In addition, the results of thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) in air indicated that wet torrefaction resulted in significant changes on combustion behavior and combustion kinetics parameters. Duckweed samples after wet torrefaction behaved more char-like and gave better combustion characteristics than raw sample.

Effect of inorganic species on torrefaction process and product properties of rice husk

The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of inorganic species on torrefaction process and product properties. Torrefaction process of raw and leached rice husk was performed at different temperatures between 210 and 270 °C. Inorganic species have significant effect on the torrefaction process and properties of torrefaction products. The results indicated that solid yield increased, gas yield decreased and liquid yield remained unchanged for leached rice husk when compared to raw rice husk. Gas products from torrefaction process mainly contained CO2 and CO, and leaching process slightly reduced the volume concentration of CO2. Removal of inorganic species slightly decreased water content and increased organic component content in liquid products. Acetic acid, furfural, 2,3-dihydrobenzofuran and levoglucosan were the dominant components in liquid product. Inorganic species enhanced the effect of deoxygenation and dehydrogenation during torrefaction process, resulting in the enrichment of C component in solid products.

Investigation of representative components of flue gas used as torrefaction pretreatment atmosphere and its effects on fast pyrolysis behaviors

In this study, three torrefaction atmosphere (N2, CO2 and 2 vol% O2 with N2 balance) were used to study effects of representative main components of flue gas during torrefaction and subsequent pyrolysis. Torrefaction pretreatment was carried out in a fixed-bed reactor at 230 °C and 250 °C, respectively. Results showed after torrefaction, torrefied samples from oxygenated atmosphere presented severer hemicellulose decomposition. And its effects on fast pyrolysis were investigated in thermogravimetry analysis and bench-scale fixed-bed reactor. It was found that oxygenated atmosphere preferred to give higher relative content of phenols at 230 °C and furans at 250 °C. For CO2, higher relative content of ketones and lowest phenols were got. The result also indicated that its the O2 in flue gas which significantly improved the char yield. These results will be beneficial reference to predict and interpret alterations of pyrolysis behaviors when flue gas constitution changes in industrial application.