Catalytic pyrolysis of nutrient-stressed Scenedesmus obliquus microalgae for high-quality bio-oil production

Sherif Ishola Mustapha, Ismail Rawat, Faizal Bux and Yusuf Makarfi Isa

Renewable Energy, 2021, vol. 179, issue C, 2036-2047

Abstract: Pyrolysis of nutrient-stressed Scenedesmus obliquus microalgae over various supported metal M/Fe3O4-HZSM-5 catalysts (M = Zr, W, Co and Mo) was investigated at a temperature of 500 °C and catalyst to biomass ratio of 1:1. The synthesized catalysts were characterized using XRD, TGA and HRSEM/EDS. The influence of temperature (400 °C, 500 °C, 600 °C and 700 °C) and catalyst to biomass ratio (0.25:1, 0.5:1 and 1:1) on pyrolysis product yield was also investigated. The results showed that all the supported metal catalysts during pyrolysis promote aromatization and acid ketonization of bio-oils. The total amounts of acids present in pyrolytic bio-oil significantly decreased from 26.68% (non-catalytic) to between 0.58 and 9.68% (catalytic). Also, production of 2-pentanone was observed to increase from ∼10% (non-catalytic) to 27.36–53.90% (catalytic). In terms of energy recovery, Co/Fe3O4-HZSM-5 had about 40% energy recovery, which was the highest while the least performing catalyst was W/Fe3O4-HZSM-5 with 24.18% energy recovery in bio-oil. Overall, Co/Fe3O4-HZSM-5 catalyst showed better activity in enhancing the bio-oil quality and yield; it had the lowest nitrogen content (4.77 wt%) and highest bio-oil yield (17.73 wt %) as well as highest HHV (39.12 MJ/kg) which is almost similar to that of crude petroleum.

Keywords: Microalgae; Nutrient-stressed; Pyrolysis; Supported metal catalysts; Bio-oil (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960148121012039
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:renene:v:179:y:2021:i:c:p:2036-2047

DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2021.08.043

Access Statistics for this article

Renewable Energy is currently edited by Soteris A. Kalogirou and Paul Christodoulides

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