Erwin Wilbers

Pyrolysis is an important technology to convert lignocellulosic biomass to a renewable liquid energy carrier known as pyrolysis oil or bio-oil. Herein we report the pyrolysis of pigeon pea wood, a widely available biomass in the Philippines, in a semi-continuous reactor at gram scale. The effects of process conditions such as temperature (400–600 °C), nitrogen flow rate (7–15 mL min⁻¹) and particle size of the biomass feed (0.5–1.3 mm) on the product yields were determined. A Box-Behnken three-level, three-factor fractional factorial design was carried out to establish process-product yield relations. Of particular interest is the liquid product (bio-oil), of which the yield was shown to depend on all independent variables in a complex manner. The optimal conditions for highest bio-oil yield (54 wt.% on dry feed intake) were a temperature of 466 °C, a nitrogen flow rate of 14 mL min⁻¹ and a particle size of 1.3 mm. Validation of the optimized conditions proved that the average (n = 3) experimental bio-oil yield (52 wt.%) is in good agreement with the predicted value from the model. The properties of product oils were determined using various analytical techniques including gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC–MS), gel-permeation chromatography (GPC), nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (¹³C- and HSQC-NMR) and elemental and proximate analyses. The bio-oils were shown to have low ash content (0.2%), high heating value (29 MJ kg⁻¹) and contain high value-added phenolics compounds (41%, GC peak area) as well as low molecular weight aldehydes and carboxylic acids. GPC analysis indicated the presence of a considerable amount of higher molecular weight compounds. NMR measurements showed that a large proportion of bio-oil contains aliphatic carbons (~60%), likely formed from the decomposition of (hemi)cellulose components, which are abundantly present in the starting pigeon pea wood. Subsequent preliminary scale-up pyrolysis experiments in a fluidized bed reactor (~100 g_feed h⁻¹, 475 °C and N₂ flow rate of 1.5 L min⁻¹) gave a non-optimized bio-oil yield of 44 wt.%. Further fractionation and/or processing are required to upgrade these bio-oils to biofuels and biobased chemicals.

Current lignin fractionation methods use harsh conditions that alter the native lignin structure, resulting in a recalcitrant material which is undesired for downstream processing. Milder fractionation processes allow for the isolation of lignins that are high in β-aryl ether (β-O-4) content, however, at reduced extraction efficiency. The development of improved lignin extraction methods using mild conditions is therefore desired. For this reason, a flow-through setup for mild ethanosolv extraction (120 °C) was developed. The influence of acid concentration, ethanol/water ratio, and the use of other linear alcohol co-solvents on the delignification efficiency and the β-O-4 content were evaluated. With walnut shells as model feedstock, extraction efficiencies of over 55% were achieved, yielding lignin with a good structural quality in terms of β-O-4 linking motifs (typically over 60 per 100 aromatic units). For example, lignin containing 66 β-O-4 linking motifs was obtained with an 80:20 n-propanol/water ratio, 0.18 M H₂SO₄ with overall a good extraction efficiency of 57% after 5 h. The majority of the lignin was extracted in the first 2 hours and this lignin showed the best structural quality. Compared to batch extractions, both higher lignin extraction efficiency and higher β-O-4 content were obtained using the flow setup.