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In-situ Upgrading of Napier Grass Pyrolysis Vapour Over Microporous and Hierarchical Mesoporous Zeolites

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Abstract

This study presents in-situ upgrading of pyrolysis vapour derived from Napier grass over microporous and mesoporous ZSM-5 catalysts. It evaluates effect of process variables such catalyst–biomass ratio and catalyst type in a vertical fixed bed pyrolysis system at 600 °C, 50 °C/min under 5 L/min nitrogen flow. Increasing catalyst–biomass ratio during the catalytic process with microporous structure reduced production of organic phase bio-oil by approximately 7.0 wt%. Using mesoporous catalyst promoted nearly 4.0 wt% higher organic yield relative to microporous catalyst, which translate to only about 3.0 wt% reduction in organic phase compared to the yield of organic phase from non-catalytic process. GC–MS analysis of bio-oil organic phase revealed maximum degree of deoxygenation of about 36.9% with microporous catalyst compared to the mesoporous catalysts, which had between 39 and 43%. Mesoporous catalysts promoted production olefins and alkanes, normal phenol, monoaromatic hydrocarbons while microporous catalyst favoured the production of alkenes and polyaromatic hydrocarbons. There was no significant increase in the production of normal phenols over microporous catalyst due to its inability to transform the methoxyphenols and methoxy aromatics. This study demonstrated that upgrading of Napier grass pyrolysis vapour over mesoporous ZSM-5 produced bio-oil with improved physicochemical properties.

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Acknowledgements

The project was supported by the Crops for the Future (CFF) and University of Nottingham under the grant BioP1-005.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemical Engineering, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University, P.M.B 0248, Bauchi, Nigeria

    Isah Yakub Mohammed

  2. Department of Mechanical, Manufacturing and Material Engineering, The University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus, Jalan Broga, 43500, Semenyih, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia

    Yousif Abdalla Abakr

  3. Department of Engineering and Mathematics, Sheffield Hallam University, City Campus, Howard Street, Sheffield, S1 1WB, UK

    Feroz Kabir Kazi

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  1. Isah Yakub Mohammed
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Correspondence to Isah Yakub Mohammed.

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Mohammed, I.Y., Abakr, Y.A. & Kazi, F.K. In-situ Upgrading of Napier Grass Pyrolysis Vapour Over Microporous and Hierarchical Mesoporous Zeolites. Waste Biomass Valor 9, 1415–1428 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12649-017-9925-x

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