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The effect of heat treatment on bio-oil properties obtained from pyrolysis of wood sawdust

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Abstract

Heat treatment is becoming increasingly popular and is growing as an industrial process to improve wood properties. The Finnish wood heat treatment technology, ThermoWood, is the most commonly used technology in the industrial area. In this study, pyrolysis of untreated and heat-treated ash wood (Fraxinus excelsior L.) was carried out using a fixed-bed reactor at different pyrolysis temperatures. The influences of the heat treatment process and the pyrolysis temperature on the yields and chemical composition of products were investigated. The maximum bio-oil yield was 46 wt% at a pyrolysis temperature of 550 °C for untreated wood, while the bio-oil yield was found to be about 41 wt% at a pyrolysis temperature of 500 °C for heat-treated wood. The elemental composition and higher heating value (HHV) of the bio-oil was determined. The chemical composition of the bio-oil was investigated using some chromatographic and spectroscopic methods, such as gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC/MS) and 1H-NMR. It was found that the heat treatment process significantly reduced the organic acids, ketones and aldehydes, while it increased the phenolic compounds. These results show that heat-treated wood sawdust should be used as a valuable feedstock for production of the bio-oil.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Nova ThermoWood for providing timber material for this study. Thanks also to Jackie Alexander for proof reading.

Conflict of interests

The authors declare that there is no conflict of interests regarding the publication of this paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Forestry, Forest Industry Engineering, Karabuk University, 78050, Karabuk, Turkey

    Günay Özbay & Ayhan Ozcifci

  2. Faculty of Forestry, Forest Industry Engineering, Bartin University, 74100, Bartin, Turkey

    Ayben Kiliç Pekgözlü

Authors
  1. Günay Özbay
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  2. Ayben Kiliç Pekgözlü
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  3. Ayhan Ozcifci
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Correspondence to Günay Özbay.

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Özbay, G., Pekgözlü, A.K. & Ozcifci, A. The effect of heat treatment on bio-oil properties obtained from pyrolysis of wood sawdust. Eur. J. Wood Prod. 73, 507–514 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00107-015-0911-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00107-015-0911-3

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