Improvement of the carbon yield from biomass carbonization through sulfuric acid pre-dehydration at room temperature

Chenxi Wang; Rongge Zou; Moriko Qian; Xiao Kong; Erguang Huo; Xiaona Lin; Lu Wang; Xuesong Zhang; Roger Ruan; Hanwu Lei

doi:10.1016/j.biortech.2022.127251

Improvement of the carbon yield from biomass carbonization through sulfuric acid pre-dehydration at room temperature

Bioresour Technol. 2022 Jul:355:127251. doi: 10.1016/j.biortech.2022.127251. Epub 2022 Apr 30.

Authors

Chenxi Wang¹, Rongge Zou¹, Moriko Qian¹, Xiao Kong², Erguang Huo³, Xiaona Lin⁴, Lu Wang⁵, Xuesong Zhang⁶, Roger Ruan⁷, Hanwu Lei⁸

Affiliations

¹ Department of Biological Systems Engineering, Washington State University, 2710 Crimson Way, Richland, WA 99354, USA.
² Department of Biological Systems Engineering, Washington State University, 2710 Crimson Way, Richland, WA 99354, USA; School of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Shanghai 200093, China.
³ Department of Biological Systems Engineering, Washington State University, 2710 Crimson Way, Richland, WA 99354, USA; School of Physical Science and Technology, Suzhou University of Science and Technology, Suzhou 215009, China.
⁴ Department of Biological Systems Engineering, Washington State University, 2710 Crimson Way, Richland, WA 99354, USA; School of Agricultural Engineering and Food Science, Shandong University of Technology, Zibo 255000, China.
⁵ School of Food and Biological Engineering, Hefei University of Technology, Hefei, Anhui 230009, China.
⁶ Engineering Laboratory for AgroBiomass Recycling & Valorizing, College of Engineering, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100083, China.
⁷ Center for Biorefining and Department of Bioproducts and Biosystems Engineering, University of Minnesota, 1390 Eckles Ave., St. Paul, MN 55108, USA.
⁸ Department of Biological Systems Engineering, Washington State University, 2710 Crimson Way, Richland, WA 99354, USA. Electronic address: hlei@wsu.edu.

PMID: 35504425
DOI: 10.1016/j.biortech.2022.127251

Abstract

The pre-dehydration of a woody biomass waste (Douglas fir, DF) with 4.6-32 wt% of diluted sulfuric acid solutions was carried out mainly at room temperature aimed to improve the carbon yield from the thermal carbonization of pre-dehydrated biomass at 500 °C. By comparison (based on the raw DF), the pre-dehydration at room temperature increased the biochar yield and carbon retention up to about 32 wt% and 54%, respectively from that of about 22 wt% and 39% without pre-dehydration. When the pre-dehydration temperature increased to 90 °C, the biochar yield and carbon retention were sharply promoted to about 44 wt% and 76%, which was about two times higher than that of the biochar obtained without pre-treatment. This work for the first time proved the effectiveness of improving the carbon yield from lignocellulosic biomass via diluted sulfuric acid-assisted pre-dehydration at low or even room temperature.

Keywords: Biochar; Biomass; Carbon recovery; Carbonization; Pre-dehydration.

MeSH terms

Biomass
Carbon*
Dehydration*
Humans
Sulfuric Acids
Temperature

Substances

Sulfuric Acids
Carbon
sulfuric acid