Fast Pyrolysis of African and European Lignocellulosic Biomasses Using Py-GC/MS and Fluidized Bed Reactor

Abstract

Five biomasses spruce (Picea abies L.), beech (Fagus sylvatica L.), iroko (Chlophora excelsa L.), albizia (Albizia adianthifolia L.), and corncob (Zea mays ssp.) have been subjected to analytical pyrolysis (Py-GC/MS) and bench-scale pyrolysis with a fluidized bed reactor at 470 °C. The comparison of Py-GC/MS and bench scale results revealed only small differences in the relative concentration of single products mainly acetic acid, hydroxyacetaldehyde, hydroxypropanone, and lignin-derived guaiacyl and syringyl components. For European woods, organic oil yields were approximately 57%, whereas African biomasses yielded between 41 and 48% because of their higher mineral contents. The analysis of bio-oil composition revealed no significant differences between African and European biomasses. Acetic acid, hydroxyacetaldehyde, hydroxypropanone, and levoglucosan were found to be the largest individual components in the volatiles. Bio-oil from corncob, having the lowest lignin content contained high concentration of 4-vinyl-phenol, a lignin derived product. This implied that the degradation products largely depend on the constituents' structure of the biomass. The higher heating value of all bio-oils ranged 16−17 MJ/kg.