Hydrothermal Carbonization of Corn Stover: Structural Evolution of Hydro-Char and Degradation Kinetics

Tiago Teribele, Maria Elizabeth Gemaque Costa, Conceição de Maria Sales da Silva, Lia Martins Pereira, Lucas Pinto Bernar, Douglas Alberto Rocha de Castro, Fernanda Paula da Costa Assunção, Marcelo Costa Santos, Isaque Wilkson de Sousa Brandão, Clícia Joana Neves Fonseca, Maja Shultze, Thomas Hofmann, Sammy Jonatan Bremer and Nélio Teixeira Machado
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Tiago Teribele: Graduate Program of Natural Resources Engineering of Amazon, Rua Corrêa N° 1, Campus Profissional-UFPA, Belém 66075-110, Brazil
Maria Elizabeth Gemaque Costa: Graduate Program of Natural Resources Engineering of Amazon, Rua Corrêa N° 1, Campus Profissional-UFPA, Belém 66075-110, Brazil
Conceição de Maria Sales da Silva: Graduate Program of Natural Resources Engineering of Amazon, Rua Corrêa N° 1, Campus Profissional-UFPA, Belém 66075-110, Brazil
Lia Martins Pereira: Graduate Program of Natural Resources Engineering of Amazon, Rua Corrêa N° 1, Campus Profissional-UFPA, Belém 66075-110, Brazil
Lucas Pinto Bernar: Graduate Program of Natural Resources Engineering of Amazon, Rua Corrêa N° 1, Campus Profissional-UFPA, Belém 66075-110, Brazil
Douglas Alberto Rocha de Castro: Graduate Program of Natural Resources Engineering of Amazon, Rua Corrêa N° 1, Campus Profissional-UFPA, Belém 66075-110, Brazil
Fernanda Paula da Costa Assunção: Graduate Program of Civil Engineering, Rua Corrêa N° 1, Campus Profissional-UFPA, Belém 66075-110, Brazil
Marcelo Costa Santos: Graduate Program of Chemical Engineering, Rua Corrêa N° 1, Campus Profissional-UFPA, Belém 66075-110, Brazil
Isaque Wilkson de Sousa Brandão: Faculty of Sanitary and Environmental Engineering, Rua Corrêa N° 1, Campus Profissional-UFPA, Belém 66075-900, Brazil
Clícia Joana Neves Fonseca: Graduate Program of Materials Science-IME, Praça General Tibúrcio N° 80, Rio de Janeiro 22290-270, Brazil
Maja Shultze: Leibnitz-Institüt für Agrartechnik Potsdam-Bornin e.V., Department of Postharvest Technology, Max-Eyth-Alee 100, 14469 Potsdam, Germany
Thomas Hofmann: Leibnitz-Institüt für Agrartechnik Potsdam-Bornin e.V., Department of Postharvest Technology, Max-Eyth-Alee 100, 14469 Potsdam, Germany
Sammy Jonatan Bremer: HTW-Berlin, FG Regenerative Energien, Treskowallee 8, 10318 Berlin, Germany
Nélio Teixeira Machado: Graduate Program of Natural Resources Engineering of Amazon, Rua Corrêa N° 1, Campus Profissional-UFPA, Belém 66075-110, Brazil

Energies, 2023, vol. 16, issue 7, 1-22

Abstract: Hydrothermal processing of biomass may be able to overcome a series of problems associated with the thermochemical conversion of lignocellulosic material into energy and fuels. Investigating the process parameters and an adequate process description is one of the first steps to being able to design and optimize a certain treatment concept. In the present article, we studied process evolution with respect to reaction time in order to evaluate structure changes and kinetics of corn stover decomposition in a hydrothermal reactor. The effect of the biomass-to-H 2 O ratio was also investigated. A pilot-scale reactor of 18.75 L was used to conduct hydrothermal processing runs at 250 °C at different reaction times (60, 120 and 240 min) and biomass-to-H 2 O ratios (1:10, 1:15 and 1:20). Solid phase products were characterized by thermogravimetry (TG), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), elemental composition (EDX), crystalline phases by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and surface area (BET). For the experiments with a constant reaction time, the yields of hydro-char, aqueous and gaseous phases varied between 31.08 and 35.82% (wt.), 54.59 and 60.83% (wt.) and 8.08 and 9.58% (wt.), respectively. The yields of hydro-char and gases tend to increase with higher biomass-to-H 2 O ratios, while aqueous phase yields are lower when using lower ratios. As expected, the yields of liquid and gases are higher when using higher reaction times, but there is a reduction in hydro-char yields. TG showed that 60 min was not enough to completely degrade the corn stover, while 120 and 240 min presented similar results, indicating an optimized time of reaction between 120 and 240 min. SEM images, elemental composition and XRD of hydro-char showed that higher biomass-to-H 2 O ratios increase the carbonization of corn stover. The surface area analysis of hydro-char obtained at 250 °C, 2.0 °C/min, a biomass-to-H 2 O ratio of 1:10 and 240 min showed a surface area of 4.35 m 2 /g, a pore volume of 18.6 mm 3 /g and an average pore width of 17.08 μm. The kinetic of corn stover degradation or bio-char formation was correlated with a pseudo-first-order exponential model, exhibiting a root-mean-square error (r 2 ) of 1.000, demonstrating that degradation kinetics of corn stover with hot-compressed H 2 O, expressed as hydro-char formation, is well described by an exponential decay kinetics.

Keywords: corn stover; hydrothermal carbonization; hydro-char characterization; structural evolution; kinetics of corn stover degradation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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