Evaluating Pyrolysis of Cypress Tree Residues in a Continuous Thermal Reactor

Document Type : Original Research

Authors

1 Department of Biosystems Engineering Shahid Bahonar University of Kerman, Kerman Iran

2 Biosystems Engineering Department, Agriculture Faculty, Shahid Bahonar University of Kerman

Abstract

Pyrolysis is a thermochemical process by which biomass is decomposed by heating in the absence of oxygen and the resulting emitted gases and settled bio-char are used for energy supply. Cypress pruning residues due to their gums content are a good source for pyrolysis. In this study, a reactor equipped with a screw conveyor was built and used for pyrolysis of stems and leaves of cypress tree. Then the effects of temperature and residence time of the reactor on their thermal decompositions was investigated using factorial experiments based on a completely randomized design. In these experiments, temperature was set at 5 levels from 300 to 500°C, with 50 degrees intervals and the residence time was set from 5 to 30 minutes with 5 minute intervals. The results showed that, at 1% significant level, both resident time and reactor temperature and their interaction had significant effects on bio-char yields for both stem, and leaves. The analysis of TG/DTG diagrams showed that the bio-char was formed from 200 to 500°C. The highest rate of decomposition of hemicellulose was at 340°C, and it was 450°C and 580°C for cellulose and lignin, selectively. The final rich carbon content of bio-char was formed after 750°C which resulted 23% for the stems and 28% for the leaves. The pyrolysis experiments with different retention time in the reactor indicated that, in general, the amount of bio-char decreases as the retention time increased.

Keywords

Main Subjects


Amini-Niaki, SR and Ghazanfari, A (2013). Comparison of fuel and emission properties of petro diesel and sunflower biodiesel prepared by optimized production variables. Fuel, 109, 384-388.
Aysu, T and Küçük, MM (2014). Biomass pyrolysis in a fixed-bed reactor: Effects of pyrolysis parameters on product yields and characterization of products. Energy, 64, 1002-1025.
Cavalaglio, G, Cotana, F, Nicolini, A, Coccia, V, Petrozzi, A, Formica, A and Bertini, A (2020). Characterization of various biomass feedstock suitable for small-scale energy plants as preliminary activity of biocheaper project. Sustainability, 12, 6678.
Channiwala, SA and Parikh, PP (2002). A unified correlation for estimating HHV of solid, liquid and gaseous fuels. Fuel, 81, 1051-1063.
Chen, Y, Fang, Y, Yang, H, Xin, S, Zhang, X, Wang, X and Chen, H (2019). Effect of volatiles interaction during pyrolysis of cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin at different temperatures. Fuel, 248, 1-7.
Dalluge, DL, Daugaard, T, Johnston, P, Kuzhiyil, N, Wright, MM and Brown, RC (2014). Continuous production of sugars from pyrolysis of acid-infused lignocellulosic biomass. Green chemistry, 16, 4144-4155.
Doaguie, A, Ghazanfari, A and Tabil, L (2012). Mesophilic anaerobic digestion of damask rose bagasse with different proportions of cattle manure. Canadian Biosystems Engineering, 54.
Iwasaki, T, Suzuki, S and Kojima, T (2014). Influence of biomass pyrolysis temperature, heating rate and type of biomass on produced char in a fluidized bed reactor. Energy and Environment Research, 4, 64.
Pattiya, A and Suttibak, S (2012). Production of bio-oil via fast pyrolysis of agricultural residues from cassava plantations in a fluidised-bed reactor with a hot vapour filtration unit. Journal of Analytical Applied Pyrolysis, 95, 227-235.
Ramezanzade, M and Ghazanfari Moghaddam, A (2018). Optimizing the production parameters for pellets made from pistachio tree pruning using multi-response optimization. Waste and Biomass Valorization, 9, 1213-1221.
Sharma, K, Singh, V and Arora, A (2011). Natural biodegradable polymers as matrices in transdermal drug delivery. International Journal of Drug Development & Research, 3, 85-103.
Tripathi, M, Sahu, JN and Ganesan, P (2016). Effect of process parameters on production of biochar from biomass waste through pyrolysis: A review. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 55, 467-481.
Vasudevan, P, Sharma, S and Kumar, A (2005). Liquid fuel from biomass: an overview. Journal of Scientific and Industrial Research, 54, 822-831.
Williams, PT and Besler, S (1996). The influence of temperature and heating rate on the slow pyrolysis of biomass. Renewable Energy, 7, 233-250.
Yorgun, S and Yıldız, D (2015). Slow pyrolysis of paulownia wood: Effects of pyrolysis parameters on product yields and bio-oil characterization. Journal of Analytical and Applied Pyrolysis, 114, 68-78.
Zhao, B, O'connor, D, Zhang, J, Peng, T, Shen, Z, Tsang, DCW and Hou, D (2018). Effect of pyrolysis temperature, heating rate, and residence time on rapeseed stem derived biochar. Journal of Cleaner Production, 174, 977-987.