TG–DSC analysis of straw biomass pyrolysis and release characteristics of noncondensable gas in a fixed-bed reactor

ABSTRACT

Under the double pressures caused by the energy shortage and environmental damage, to exploit the agricultural wastes and convert into available clean fuels are becoming more and more urgent in modern society. The aim of learning the pyrolysis characteristics of soybean straw and corn straw, the nonisothermal thermogravimetry and differential scanning calorimetry (TG-DSC) method was used in this work. The results showed that both of biomass feedstocks all underwent four different pyrolysis stages, with the increase in heating rate, the peak temperature shifted toward the high-temperature interval, and that the yield of bio-char also increased correspondingly; potassium had an influence on the thermal cracking of biomass, and that the existence form of potassium and impregnation increment of sylvite would result in the yield of bio-char was distinct. In addition, temperature and catalyst had a significant impact on the gaseous products of biomass pyrolysis. Increasing the pyrolysis temperature could enhance the yield of CO and H₂ and CH₄ content reached the maximum at 600°C. For both of the biomass, sylvite had a negative effect on the formation of CH₄, and H₂ content of soybean straw reached a maximum with 5% K₂CO₃ and corn straw with 5% KCl.

KEYWORDS:

• Biomass
• catalyst
• kinetics parameters
• noncondensable gas
• pyrolysis
• TG-DSC