Pyrolyisis of sunflower seed hulls employing Diatomaceous earth based catalysts

ANDRES I. CASONI; ROMAIN DUTOIT; GABRIEL RADIVOY; MARIA A. VOLPE

Congreso; 3nd International Congress on Catalysis for Biorefineries; 2015

Twenty two thousand ton of sunflower seed hulls are the residue of edible oil industries located at Bahía Blanca, Argentina. The most part of this biomass is burned for obtaining heat power. Pyrolysis of this lignocellulosic residue for obtaining bio-oils would represent several advantages [1]. Storage and transport- ation of bio-liquids would be more simple. Besides it could be considered as a source of chemicals.Several heterogeneous catalysts have been employed for performing pyrolysis of lignocellulosic biomass. The catalytic pyrolysis of poplar wood over HZSM-5 leads to a liquid rich in phenolic compounds. However the yield to liquid is low and the catalyst became strongly deactivated. These disadvantages were related to the presence of microporosity and the high acidity of the zeolite [2]. Thus catalysts with wider pores and mild acidity should be considered for carrying out catalytic pyrolysis processes.In the present work copper, zinc and iron supported on diatomaceous earth (DE) are studied as catalysts for performing pyrolysis of sunflower seed hulls in order to obtain high yield to liquids. Fe , Cu and Zn species are supported on DE for introducing redox and/or acid properties into DE. The samples are characterized by TPR, TEM, N2 sorptometry and titrations with n-butylamine. An attempt to establish a relationship between the physicochemical properties of the catalysts and the properties of the bio-liquids is carried out. This study is carried out in the context of performing