Influence of demineralization on thermal degradation of bagasse and harvesting residues of sugarcane

Fecha

2015-09-27

Autores

Rodríguez Machín, Lizet
Arteaga Pérez, Luis Ernesto
Pérez Bermúdez, Raúl Alberto
Casas Ledón, Yannay
Prins, Wolter
Ronsse, Frederik

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Resumen

Due to depletion of natural resources, increasing greenhouse emissions and awareness of the need for sustainibility in terms of safely reusing of the biomass, its transformation to valuable materials (i.e. biofuels) and energy (i.e. valorization) is emerging as a strong trend. Integration of biomass pretreatment with pyrolysis offers an opportunity to improve end-product quality and conversion efficiency. Sugarcane bagasse (SCB) and its harvesting residues (sugarcane trash, SCT) are prospective feedstocks for pyrolysis. Nevertheless, their relative high ash content affects the quality of the pyrolysis products, mainly the bio-oil. In order to overcome this problem, the inorganics in SCB and SCT may be extracted using water or acidic solutions (e.g. HCl, H2SO4 and citric acid), which in turn can affect the lignocellulosic structure in the biomass, which in turns affects its behavior in the thermal degradation process. This work reports the effect of different solvents at demineralization conditions (25 °C and 1 h of leaching time) on the thermal degradation of SCB and SCT. Both samples exhibited similar trends in ash reduction after leaching, the degree of de-ashing depended on the nature of the leaching solution. However, the ash removal from SCT was less efficient. Thermogravimetric (TG) and Derivative Thermogravimetric (DTG) analyses revealed that leaching treatment affected the maximum degradation rate (i.e. mass loss rate) of SCT to a higher extent than for SCB. In both cases, SCB (Figure 1) and SCT (Figure 2), the temperature at maximum degradation rate was shifted to lower values, except for water. Figure 1 DTG curves of untreated and leached SCB at 25 °C and 1 h recorded in Helium atmosphere and the corresponding peaks temperatures Figure 2 DTG curves of untreated and leached SCT at 25 °C and 1 h recorded in Helium atmosphere and the corresponding peaks temperatures This is likely to be associated with dehydration and hydrolysis reactions promoted by acidic solutions of HCl, H2SO4 and citric acid to an extent that may result in structural changes of the lignocellulose (i.e. hydrolysis) being more significant than the suppression or passivation of the catalytic effect of the inorganic species by leaching, and this with respect to subsequent thermal degradation behavior. Higher removal percentages for leaching with acids are associated to the formation of soluble inorganics salts of K, Mg, Fe, Na, Si and Al. After treatment (water and HCl), the silicon content appears to increase, since the major part of this element comes probably from soil and clay which likely does not dissolve during acid washing.

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Palabras clave

Sugarcane bagasse, Sugarcane trash, Pretreatment, Demineralization, Ash content

Citación

Citar según la fuente original: Rodríguez Machín, Lizet, Luis Ernesto Arteaga-Perez, Raul Alberto Perez-Bermudez, Yannay Casas-Ledon, Wolter Prins, and Frederik Ronsse. 2015. “Influence of Demineralization on Thermal Degradation of Bagasse and Harvest Residues of Sugarcane.” In Chemical Engineering, 10th European Congress, Abstracts, 596–597.