Influence of torrefaction on the characteristics and pyrolysis behavior of cellulose

Shurong Wang, Gongxin Dai, Bin Ru, Yuan Zhao, Xiaoliu Wang, Gang Xiao and Zhongyang Luo

Energy, 2017, vol. 120, issue C, 864-871

Abstract: The influence of torrefaction on cellulose structural characteristics and the resulting pyrolysis behavior was investigated in this study. Torrefaction reduced O/C ratio in cellulose and increased its high heating value. The crystallinity of cellulose increased slightly first and then decreased sharply with the increase of torrefaction temperature, which could be ascribed to competitive degradation between crystalline region and amorphous region, as indicated by 13C CP/MAS NMR analysis. Besides, the cleavage of β-1,4-glycosidic bond and the dehydration of hydroxyl were the major reactions occurring in torrefaction. Avrami-Erofeev model was found to be the most suitable kinetic reaction model for explaining the thermogravimetric weight loss during the pyrolysis of the raw and torrefied cellulose. A distributed activation energy model based on Avrami-Erofeev model was subsequently used to reveal the pyrolytic kinetics. It was found that the changes in cellulose structure influenced the kinetic parameters greatly. Torrefaction also changed pyrolytic product distribution. The yields of furfural, alicyclic ketones and anhydrosugars increased while that of 5-hydroxymethyl-furfural decreased as torrefaction temperature increased.

Keywords: Cellulose; Torrefaction; Structure analysis; Pyrolysis; Kinetics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (27)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544216317923
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:energy:v:120:y:2017:i:c:p:864-871

DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2016.11.135

Access Statistics for this article

Energy is currently edited by Henrik Lund and Mark J. Kaiser

More articles in Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().