Demineralization Pretreatments for Reducing Biomass Variability in Pyrolysis.

Thermogravimetric and calorimetric analyses are applied to study how washing modifies the pyrolysis rates and heats of five samples of potato plant stems. Hot (553 K) water or dilute (hydrochloric) acid washing of powdered samples causes a reduction in the alkali content by about 62-78 or 97-99%. The feedstock variability is highly reduced, especially for dilute acid treatment.

Development of a novel reactor for the oxidative degradation of straw.

A pilot scale system and a computer model have been developed to evaluate the performances of a novel straw pyrolyzer based on direct (convective) heating. A horizontal cylindrical reactor is continuously fed from the end by straw, while hot gas enters through holes distributed along the lateral surface. The model includes the unsteady, two-dimensional conservation equations of heat and mass transfer for the solid and the gas phase, the generalized Darcy law and a multi-step devolatilization mechanism.