Title: Influence of initial moisture on pyrolysis of fresh biomass

Authors: Min Fanfei, Zhang Mingxu

Addresses: Department of Material Engineering, Anhui University of Science and Technology, Shungeng Road 168, Huainan, Anhui, C.P. 232001, China. ' Department of Material Engineering, Anhui University of Science and Technology, Shungeng Road 168, Huainan, Anhui, C.P. 232001, China

Abstract: Experiments were performed in a thermogravimetric analyser to understand the effects of initial moisture of biomass on its pyrolysis and kinetics. Scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffractometry and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy were employed to determine the effects of the initial moisture of grass on the char structure. Kinetic parameters were obtained by applying Flynn-Wall-Ozawa method. The results indicate that the pyrolysis characteristic temperatures and the char residue decrease with greater initial moisture of grass. The results of char analysis show that the chars| cell walls become thinner, and the fractal dimension increases, and the chars| microcrystalline became smaller and many functional groups| band peaks of chars become smaller and even disappear with the initial moisture increasing. The activation energy as a function of the conversion reveals the multi-step nature of the fresh-grass devolatilisation. The activation energy reduces about 30kJ mol⁻¹ when the initial moisture increases from 4.52% to 44.17%. [Received: July 2, 2009; Accepted: February 5, 2010]

Keywords: fresh biomass; initial moisture; pyrolysis; kinetics; char structure; fresh grass devolatilisation.

DOI: 10.1504/IJOGCT.2010.035376

International Journal of Oil, Gas and Coal Technology, 2010 Vol.3 No.3, pp.278 - 292

Published online: 26 Sep 2010 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article