Fast Pyrolysis of Chestnut Cupulae: Yields and Characterization of the Bio-Oil

Abstract

Chestnut cupulae pyrolysis experiments were conducted in a fixed-bed reactor in an attempt to determine the effects of pyrolysis temperature, particle size and sweeping gas (N 2 ) flow rate on the product yields. The maximum bio-oil yield of 52.50 wt% was obtained from chestnut cupulae in N 2 atmosphere at a pyrolysis temperature of 600 °C, sweeping gas-flow rate of 100 cm 3 . min −1 and particle size of D p ≤ 250 mm. The pyrolysis oils were collected in a cold trap maintained liquid nitrogen and characterized by elemental analysis, FTIR, 1 HNMR and GC. Chromatographic and spectroscopic studies on bio-oil have shown that chestnut cupulae can be used as a fuel and chemical feedstock.