Thermal pretreatment of wood (Lauan) block by torrefaction and its influence on the properties of the biomass

Wei-Hsin Chen, Huan-Chun Hsu, Ke-Miao Lu, Wen-Jhy Lee and Ta-Chang Lin

Energy, 2011, vol. 36, issue 5, 3012-3021

Abstract: The purpose of this study is to investigate the torrefaction behavior of woody biomass (Lauan) blocks and its influence on the properties of the wood. Three different torrefaction temperatures of 220, 250 and 280 °C, corresponding to light, mild and severe torrefactions, and four torrefaction times of 0.5, 1, 1.5 and 2 h were considered. After analyzing the torrefied woods, it was found that the torrefaction temperature of 280 °C was able to increase the calorific value of the wood up to 40%. However, over 50% of weight was lost from the wood. The grindability of the torrefied wood could be improved in a significant way if the torrefaction temperature was as high as 250 °C and the torrefaction time longer than 1 h. Therefore, the torrefaction temperature of 250 °C along with the torrefaction time longer than 1 h was the recommended operation to intensify the heating value and grindability as well as to avoid too much mass loss of the wood. This study also suggested that over 50% of the reacted wood was converted into condensed liquid. The main components in the liquid were monoaromatics; little amount of heterocyclic hydrocarbons were also obtained from the torrefactions, especially at the torrefaction temperature of 280 °C.

Keywords: Torrefaction; Woody biomass; Grindability; Condensed liquid; Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA); Gas chromatography- Mass spectrometry (GC-MS); Monoaromatics; Heterocyclic hydrocarbons (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (46)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544211001411
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:36:y:2011:i:5:p:3012-3021

DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2011.02.045

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 ().