Biocarbon production from different agricultural wastes: optimization, characterization and applications.

JHOAN TELLEZ; ERICA PACHON GÓMEZ; RODRIGO DOMINGUEZ; MARCOS MARINO; DEBORA LÓPEZ; CÁMARA, OSVALDO; MARIA EUGENIA GONZALEZ QUIJON; ELIZABETH L. MOYANO

Mexico

Taller; TLMC4- Cuarto Taller Latinoamericano de Materiales de Carbono; 2021

The constant increase in agricultural production is making a high amount of waste and therefore, environmental pollution rises as well. This has been moving upwards the interest in different processes that allow reusing of agricultural wastes and give them added value. Between the strategies for transforming wastes, pyrolysis is a promising technique. Pyrolysis consists of thermal treatment of biomass in absence of oxygen that can generate carbon, bio-oil, and gaseous products for different applications. This versatile process may be employed to reuse almost any biomass residue and thus reduce the environmental impact generated by wastes. As a consequence, new products with added value can be generated1.This work aimed to evaluate the products and yields obtained from different agricultural wastes using the fast pyrolysis technique. Rice husk (RH), oil palm residues (OPR), cacao residues (CR), and poultry litter (PL) were the biomass here studied. All materials were pyrolyzed under vacuum conditions and with nitrogen flow to ensure the oxygen absence and atmosphere inert condition. The pyrolytic reactions were carried out at different temperatures (400 ? 700 °C) and reaction times (20 - 120 minutes). Three fractions were obtained from every pyrolytic reaction: biocarbon, bio-oil, and syn-gas. Particularly, biocarbons were exhaustively characterized by elemental analysis, XRD, ICP, SEM, and BET to know their composition and morphology in order to evaluate their possible applications. Currently, we are working with these carbonaceous materials to be used as mesoporous casts and batteries electrodes2, to recover organic compounds from cheese whey3,4, and to obtain composites with biopolymers for the adsorption of toxic metals from aqueous solutions5. Depending on the features of the carbonaceous material (carbon content, porosity, ash content, among others) it is used for one purpose or another.