TOWARD BIOENERGY SUSTAINABLE GENERATION FROM LIGNOCELLULOSIC BIOMASS PYROLYSIS

L. GUREVICH; P. BONELLI; A. L. CUKIERMAN

Advances in Energy Research

Nova Science Publishers

Lugar: New York; Año: 2021; p. 117 - 140

The present chapter deals with pyrolysis of peanutshells examining comparatively two possible routes to enhance yield and/orquality of the resulting bio-oils and to favor the process sustainability. Theyinvolved a mild acid pretreatment to remove the minerals inherently present inthe shells and in situ catalyticpyrolysis employing a modified natural zeolite as catalyst. Their effect onyields and characteristics of the three kinds of pyrolysis products, namelypyrolytic liquids (bio-oils), an enriched carbon solid (biochar), and permanentgases, were systematically investigated under the same, pre-established experimentalconditions. Complementary, the pyrolytic behavior of the raw and pretreatedpeanut shells, as well as of the raw shells in the presence of the catalyst wasexamined over a wide range of degradation temperatures. The acid pretreatmentwas found to increase both yield and quality of the bio-oil with respect tothose for the pyrolysis of the raw shells, in line with noticeablemodifications in their pyrolytic behavior. Besides, pyrolysis of the acid pretreatedshells resulted in a biochar with lower ash content and higher BET surfacearea, favoring not only its potential use as bio-fuel, but also as soilamender, rough sorbent or for further upgrading to activated carbons. On theother hand, the catalytic pyrolysis promoted a slight decrease in bio-oilyield, at the expense of an increase in gases generation, but improved bio-oilquality by reduction of oxygen content and enhancement of its high heatingvalue. The results indicated that although the two routes investigated were suitableto improve bio-oils quality and, therefore, to promote their use, mineralsremoval from the shells showed rather better comparative advantages since itenabled to enhance both the yield and quality of the bio-oil, and to widenpotentialities of application for the biochar, contributing, together with thepossible use of the gases generated for heat supply, to the processsustainability