Zhongqing Ma

Combined pretreatment with torrefaction and washing using torrefaction liquid products to yield upgraded biomass and pyrolysis products

This study presented an approach to upgrade biomass and pyrolysis products using a process based on torrefaction liquid washing combined with torrefaction pretreatment. The torrefaction of cotton stalk was first conducted at 250°C for 30min and then the resulting torrefaction liquid products were collected and reused to wash cottonstalk. The pyrolysis of the original and pretreated cotton stalk was performed at 500°C for 15min in a fixed-bed reactor. The results indicated that the combined pretreatment obviously reduced the metallic species in cotton stalk, decreased the water and acids contents while promoted phenols in bio-oil, declined the ash content in biochar, as well as improved the heating value of non-condensable gas. Overall, the combined pretreatment did not only allow to reuse the liquid products issued from torrefaction pretreatment but also improved the quality of biomass and the pyrolysis products, making it a novel promising pretreatment method.

An approach for upgrading biomass and pyrolysis product quality using a combination of aqueous phase bio-oil washing and torrefaction pretreatment

Bio-oil undergoes phase separation because of poor stability. Practical application of aqueous phase bio-oil is challenging. In this study, a novel approach that combines aqueous phase bio-oil washing and torrefaction pretreatment was used to upgrade the biomass and pyrolysis product quality. The effects of individual and combined pretreatments on cotton stalk pyrolysis were studied using TG-FTIR and a fixed bed reactor. The results showed that the aqueous phase bio-oil washing pretreatment removed metals and resolved the two pyrolysis peaks in the DTG curve. Importantly, it increased the bio-oil yield and improved the pyrolysis product quality. For example, the water and acid content of bio-oil decreased significantly along with an increase in phenol formation, and the heating value of non-condensable gases improved, and these were more pronounced when combined with torrefaction pretreatment. Therefore, the combined pretreatment is a promising method, which would contribute to the development of polygeneration pyrolysis technology.

In-depth study of rice husk torrefaction: Characterization of solid, liquid and gaseous products, oxygen migration and energy yield

Torrefaction is a promising method for biomass upgrading, and analysis of all products is the essential way to reveal torrefaction mechanism. In this study, torrefaction of rice husk was performed at 210-300 °C. Results showed that the fuel properties of solid products were greatly enhanced upon removal of oxygen. The gaseous products were mainly CO2 (52.9-73.8 vol%), followed by CO (26.3-39.2 vol%). The liquid product was mainly water and some tar, and the latter contained acids, furans, ketones, aldehydes, and phenols, among which the relative content of acids was the highest. Torrefaction temperature has obvious effects on the oxygen migration. Within the temperature range of 210-300 °C, 9.5-63.2% of oxygen in rice husk was migrated to the gaseous and liquid products. The H2O was the major contributor to deoxygenation, followed by CO2 and CO. Thus, formation of H2O, CO2, and CO during torrefaction is important as it achieves the purpose of intense deoxygenation.