Pyrolysis of corn stalk biomass briquettes in a scaled-up microwave technology

Arshad Adam Salema; Muhammad T Afzal; Lyes Bennamoun

doi:10.1016/j.biortech.2017.02.113

Pyrolysis of corn stalk biomass briquettes in a scaled-up microwave technology

Bioresour Technol. 2017 Jun:233:353-362. doi: 10.1016/j.biortech.2017.02.113. Epub 2017 Feb 28.

Authors

Arshad Adam Salema¹, Muhammad T Afzal², Lyes Bennamoun³

Affiliations

¹ Discipline of Mechanical Engineering, School of Engineering, Monash University Malaysia, Jalan Lagoon Selatan, 46150 Bandar Sunway, Selangor, Malaysia.
² Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, NB E3B 5A3, Canada. Electronic address: mafzal@unb.ca.
³ Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, NB E3B 5A3, Canada.

PMID: 28285228
DOI: 10.1016/j.biortech.2017.02.113

Abstract

Pyrolysis of corn stalk biomass briquettes was carried out in a developed microwave (MW) reactor supplied with 2.45GHz frequency using 3kW power generator. MW power and biomass loading were the key parameters investigated in this study. Highest bio-oil, biochar, and gas yield of 19.6%, 41.1%, and 54.0% was achieved at different process condition. In terms of quality, biochar exhibited good heating value (32MJ/kg) than bio-oil (2.47MJ/kg). Bio-oil was also characterised chemically using FTIR and GC-MS method. This work may open new dimension towards development of large-scale MW pyrolysis technology.

Keywords: Biomass; Briquette; Microwave; Product; Pyrolysis; Yield and quality.

MeSH terms

Biofuels
Biomass*
Heating
Microwaves
Zea mays*

Substances

Biofuels