Abstract
The high nitrogen content in wood waste containing urea formaldehyde from furniture industry hampers its utilization as a clean fuel. Herein, microwave-assisted organosolv pretreatment of wood waste using glycerol as solvent was conducted in a commercial microwave reactor with varying temperature of 120–240 °C for reducing nitrogen content. The elemental analysis shows that up to 88.1 % of nitrogen and 92.9 % of alkali and alkaline earth metals in wood waste can be removed by microwave-assisted glycerolysis. The solid nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometry analysis illustrate that the urea–formaldehyde resin, lignin and hemicellulose fractions in wood waste can also be simultaneously reduced by pretreatment. Raw and pretreated wood waste was subsequently fast pyrolyzed in a semi-batch pyroprobe reactor. The experimental results demonstrate that the relative content of levoglucosan in pyrolysis vapors was significantly enhanced by pretreatment, whereas the relative content of nitrogen-containing compounds was reduced obviously. These findings provide a simple and efficient pretreatment method for reducing the formation of nitrogenous compounds during fast pyrolysis of nitrogen-rich wood waste.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Bridgwater, A.V.: Review of fast pyrolysis of biomass and product upgrading. Biomass Bioenerg. 38, 68–94 (2012)
Czernik, S., Bridgwater, A.V.: Overview of applications of biomass fast pyrolysis oil. Energ. Fuel 18(2), 590–598 (2004)
Patwardhan, P.R., Satrio, J.A., Brown, R.C., Shanks, B.H.: Product distribution from fast pyrolysis of glucose-based carbohydrates. J. Anal. Appl. Pyrol. 86(2), 323–330 (2009)
Mettler, M.S., Vlachos, D.G., Dauenhauer, P.J.: Top ten fundamental challenges of biomass pyrolysis for biofuels. Energ. Environ. Sci. 5(7), 7797–7809 (2012)
Lam, S.S., Liew, R.K., Jusoh, A., Chong, C.T., Ani, F.N., Chase, H.A.: Progress in waste oil to sustainable energy, with emphasis on pyrolysis techniques. Renew. Sust. Energ. Rev. 53, 741–753 (2016)
Lam, S.S., Liew, R.K., Cheng, C.K., Chase, H.A.: Catalytic microwave pyrolysis of waste engine oil using metallic pyrolysis char. Appl. Catal. B-Environ. 176, 601–617 (2015)
Russell, A.D., Antreou, E.I., Lam, S.S., Ludlow-Palafox, C., Chase, H.A.: Microwave-assisted pyrolysis of HDPE using an activated carbon bed. RSC Adv. 2(17), 6756–6760 (2012)
Carlson, T.R., Cheng, Y.T., Jae, J., Huber, G.W.: Production of green aromatics and olefins by catalytic fast pyrolysis of wood sawdust. Energ. Environ. Sci. 4(1), 145–161 (2011)
Lu, Q.A., Zhang, Z.F., Dong, C.Q., Zhu, X.F.: Catalytic upgrading of biomass fast pyrolysis vapors with nano metal oxides: an analytical Py-GC/MS study. Energies 3(11), 1805–1820 (2010)
Mettler, M.S., Paulsen, A.D., Vlachos, D.G., Dauenhauer, P.J.: Tuning cellulose pyrolysis chemistry: selective decarbonylation via catalyst-impregnated pyrolysis. Catal. Sci. Technol. 4(11), 3822–3825 (2014)
Girods, P., Dufour, A., Rogaume, Y., Rogaume, C., Zoulahan, A.: Thermal removal of nitrogen species from wood waste containing urea formaldehyde and melamine formaldehyde resins. J. Hazard. Mater. 159(2–3), 210–221 (2008)
Bohm, M., Salem, M.Z.M., Srba, J.: Formaldehyde emission monitoring from a variety of solid wood, plywood, blockboard and flooring products manufactured for building and furnishing materials. J. Hazard. Mater. 221, 68–79 (2012)
Du, Z.Y., Mohr, M., Ma, X.C., Cheng, Y.L., Lin, X.G., Liu, Y.H., Zhou, W.G., Chen, P., Ruan, R.: Hydrothermal pretreatment of microalgae for production of pyrolytic bio-oil with a low nitrogen content. Bioresour. Technol. 120, 13–18 (2012)
Risholm-Sundman, M., Vestin, E.: Emissions during combustion of particleboard and glued veneer. Holz Roh Werkst. 63(3), 179–185 (2005)
Girods, P., Dufour, A., Rogaurne, Y., Rogaurne, C., Zoulalian, A.: Pyrolysis of wood waste containing urea-formaldehyde and melamine–formaldehyde resins. J. Anal. Appl. Pyrol. 81(1), 113–120 (2008)
Saleh, S.B., Flensborg, J.P., Shoulaifar, T.K., Sarossy, Z., Hansen, B.B., Egsgaard, H., DeMartini, N., Jensen, P.A., Glarborg, P., Dam-Johansen, K.: Release of chlorine and sulfur during biomass torrefaction and pyrolysis. Energ. Fuel 28(6), 3738–3746 (2014)
Zheng, A.Q., Zhao, Z.L., Chang, S., Huang, Z., Wang, X.B., He, F., Li, H.B.: Effect of torrefaction on structure and fast pyrolysis behavior of corncobs. Bioresour. Technol. 128, 370–377 (2013)
Sun, F., Chen, H.Z.: Organosolv pretreatment by crude glycerol from oleochemicals industry for enzymatic hydrolysis of wheat straw. Bioresour. Technol. 99(13), 5474–5479 (2008)
Zheng, A.Q., Zhao, Z.L., Huang, Z., Zhao, K., Wei, G.Q., Jiang, L.Q., Wang, X.B., He, F., Li, H.B.: Overcoming biomass recalcitrance for enhancing sugar production from fast pyrolysis of biomass by microwave pretreatment in glycerol. Green Chem. 17(2), 1167–1175 (2015)
Channiwala, S.A., Parikh, P.P.: A unified correlation for estimating HHV of solid, liquid and gaseous fuels. Fuel 81(8), 1051–1063 (2002)
Sannigrahi, P., Ragauskas, A.J.: Fundamentals of biomass pretreatment by fractionation. In: Wyman, C.E. (ed.) Aqueous Pretreatment of Plant Biomass for Biological and Chemical Conversion to Fuels and Chemicals, pp. 201–222. Wiley, New York (2013)
Mcdonough, T.J.: The chemistry of organosolv delignification. Tappi J. 76(8), 186–193 (1993)
Kim, K.H., Kim, J.Y., Cho, T.S., Choi, J.W.: Influence of pyrolysis temperature on physicochemical properties of biochar obtained from the fast pyrolysis of pitch pine (Pinus rigida). Bioresour. Technol. 118, 158–162 (2012)
Zheng, A., Jiang, L., Zhao, Z., Huang, Z., Zhao, K., Wei, G., Wang, X., He, F., Li, H.: Impact of torrefaction on the chemical structure and catalytic fast pyrolysis behavior of hemicellulose, lignin, and cellulose. Energy Fuels 29(12), 8027–8034 (2015)
Melkior, T., Jacob, S., Gerbaud, G., Hediger, S., Le Pape, L., Bonnefois, L., Bardet, M.: NMR analysis of the transformation of wood constituents by torrefaction. Fuel 92(1), 271–280 (2012)
Panangama, L.A., Pizzi, A.: A C-13-NMR analysis method for MUF and MF resin strength and formaldehyde emission. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 59(13), 2055–2068 (1996)
Taylor, R., Pragnell, R.J., Mclaren, J.V., Snape, C.E.: Evaluation of NMR-spectroscopy for the quantitative characterization of urea formaldehyde resins. Talanta 29(6), 489–494 (1982)
Steinhof, O., Kibrik, E.J., Scherr, G., Hasse, H.: Quantitative and qualitative H-1, C-13, and N-15 NMR spectroscopic investigation of the urea-formaldehyde resin synthesis. Magn. Reson. Chem. 52(4), 138–162 (2014)
Wen, J.L., Sun, S.L., Yuan, T.Q., Xu, F., Sun, R.C.: Understanding the chemical and structural transformations of lignin macromolecule during torrefaction. Appl. Energ. 121, 1–9 (2014)
Dalluge, D.L., Daugaard, T., Johnston, P., Kuzhiyil, N., Wright, M.M., Brown, R.C.: Continuous production of sugars from pyrolysis of acid-infused lignocellulosic biomass. Green Chem. 16(9), 4144–4155 (2014)
Patwardhan, P.R., Brown, R.C., Shanks, B.H.: Understanding the fast pyrolysis of lignin. Chemsuschem 4(11), 1629–1636 (2011)
Garcia-Perez, M., Wang, S., Shen, J., Rhodes, M., Lee, W.J., Li, C.Z.: Effects of temperature on the formation of lignin-derived oligomers during the fast pyrolysis of Mallee woody biomass. Energ. Fuel 22(3), 2022–2032 (2008)
Vinu, R., Broadbelt, L.J.: A mechanistic model of fast pyrolysis of glucose-based carbohydrates to predict bio-oil composition. Energ. Environ. Sci. 5(12), 9808–9826 (2012)
Mullen, C.A., Boateng, A.A.: Characterization of water insoluble solids isolated from various biomass fast pyrolysis oils. J. Anal. Appl. Pyrol. 90(2), 197–203 (2011)
Acknowledgments
The authors gratefully acknowledge the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grants 51376186 and 21406227), the Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province, China (Grant 2014A030313672), and the Science and Technology Planning Project of Guangdong Province, China (Grants 2014B020216004 and 2015A020215024) for financial support of this work.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Zheng, A., Zhao, K., Zhao, Z. et al. Fast Pyrolysis of Nitrogen-Rich Wood Waste Pretreated by Microwave-Assisted Glycerolysis. Waste Biomass Valor 8, 349–358 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12649-016-9578-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12649-016-9578-1