The role of secondary tar reactions on the product yields and gas composition during solar-driven fast pyrolysis of biomass pellets

DANIEL GAUTHIER; JOSÉ SORIA; GILLES FLAMANT; RUI LI; GERMÁN D. MAZZA

Praga

Congreso; 7th International Conference on Engineering for Waste and Biomass Valorisation; 2018

Faculty of Civil Engineering (Fakulta stavební) - Czech Technical University in Prague

Biomass is a renewable energy source that can aid relieving the energy crisis and environmental problems [1]. Pyrolysis is one of the most attractive thermochemical processes to convert biomass into biofuels. Even more, by using concentrated solar radiation as the energy source, the process efficiency is upgraded [2].The purpose: The objective of this work is to experimentally study and compare the effect of pellet size (5 and 10 mm) on the product yields (tar, char and gas), gas composition (H2, CO, CO2, CH4) and secondary tar reaction under fast solar pyrolysis (800, 1200 and 1600°C and 10 and 50°C/s).The main materials and methods: Solar pyrolysis experiments are carried out in transparent Pyrex® spherical balloon reactor, with argon used as the working flow medium in order to take out the volatiles products. The pellet is placed in a graphite crucible insulated with graphite foam and placed and fixed at the focus of a 1.5 kW vertical axis solar furnace.The main results: The experimental results shows that, for all fast pyrolysis conditions, there is almost no difference between product yields as well as for the gas product distribution, for the two pellet heights. The differences are within the error bars.