Fast Pyrolysis of Larch, Miscanthus Sacchariflorus and Rice Straw for Biocrude Oil Production

Jin Pil BOK^a and Yeon Seok CHOI^b,*

^a Department of Environmental and Energy mechanical Engineering, Korea University of Science and Technology, Daejeon, Republic of Korea

^b Environment and Energy Systems Research Division, Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials, Daejeon, Republic of Korea

^* Corrensponding author: Tel.: +82 42 868 7344; fax: +82 42 868 7284

E-mail address: yschoi@kimm.re.kr

Woody biomass (larch), energy crop (miscanthus sacchariflorus) and agricultural waste (rice straw) were fast pyrolyzed by a cylindrical fluidized bed reactor to investigate product yields and characteristics of biocrude oil in this study. 300 g of dried each biomass were applied to the fluidized bed reactor with reaction temperature ranging from from 400 °C to 550 °C. The vapor residence time (0.82 s) and the condensing temperature (10 °C) were not varied during every experiment. The highest biocrude oil yields were 56.03 wt.% (larch), 50.63 wt.% (miscanthus sacchariflorus) and 33.53 wt.% (rice straw) at 500 °C, respectively. According to the experimental results, the fast pyrolysis temperature significantly influenced the product yields and the characteristics of biocrude oil. The characteristics (higher heating value, viscosity, water content, density, pH, solid residue and ash) of the collected biocrude oils from each biomass were scrutinized and compared. The composition of the biocrude oil was also analyzed by GC-MS.