Kinetic modeling and optimization of biomass pyrolysis for bio-oil production

ABSTRACT

Thermo-kinetic models for biomass pyrolysis were simulated under both isothermal and non-isothermal conditions to predict the optimum parameters for bio-oil production. A comparative study for wood, sewage sludge, and newspaper print pyrolysis was conducted. The models were numerically solved by using the fourth order Runge–Kutta method in Matlab-7. It was also observed that newspaper print acquired least pyrolysis time to attain optimum bio-oil yield followed by wood and sewage sludge under the identical conditions of temperature and heating rate. Thus, at 10 K/min, the optimum pyrolysis time was 21.0, 23.8, and 42.6 min for newspaper print, wood, and sewage sludge, respectively, whereas the maximum bio-oil yield predicted was 68, 52, and 36%, respectively.

KEYWORDS:

• Biomass pyrolysis
• bio-oil
• kinetic modeling
• numerical simulation
• optimization

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Dr. –Ing. Naveed Ramzan of University of Engineering & Technology Lahore, Pakistan, for providing guidance in the development of the code in Matlab-7 to perform simulation work in this research.