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Microwave-Assisted Pyrolysis of Biomass: An Overview

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Production of Biofuels and Chemicals with Pyrolysis

Part of the book series: Biofuels and Biorefineries ((BIOBIO,volume 10))

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Abstract

Biomass is considered as an important resource for the production of biofuels and bioproducts through conventional and advanced thermochemical and biochemical technologies. Among the thermochemical technologies, pyrolysis is a quick and efficient method to produce solid, liquid, and gaseous fuels from biomass. Microwave-assisted pyrolysis has many advantages over conventional pyrolysis methods. Volumetric heating obtained though the supply of microwaves leads to the rapid initiation of biomass pyrolysis. Microwave-assisted pyrolysis has high energy efficiency and feedstock with high moisture content can be directly pyrolyzed with this technique. Computer-aided modeling and simulation tools have been applied in the development of equipment and process for the microwave-assisted pyrolysis of biomass. The modeling of process has helped to elucidate the heat and mass transfer mechanism during the microwave-assisted pyrolysis, and the optimised models have been validated using laboratory-scale experiments. Microwave-assisted pyrolysis has been investigated in the production of fuels and biproducts from various agricultural and forest residues. The studies have shown that the composition of feedstock as well as the process conditions have significant effects on the yield and composition of pyrolysis products. Additionally, microwave-absorbers have been investigated to increase the efficiency of the microwave-assisted pyrolysis. There are many challenges to be addressed in the further development of microwave-assisted pyrolysis. The high capital cost and heterogeneity in the heating of complex materials like biomass are to be resolved. These challenges should be addressed to make this technique scalable and suitable for remote and under-developed locations.

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Acknowledgement

The authors have acknowledged the support from The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) for the research on microwave-assisted pyrolysis of biomass.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Bioresource Engineering, McGill University, St. Anne-de-Bellevue, QC, Canada

    Jiby Kurian & G. S. Vijaya Raghavan

Authors
  1. Jiby Kurian
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  2. G. S. Vijaya Raghavan
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Correspondence to G. S. Vijaya Raghavan .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Biomass Group, College of Engineering, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing, Jiangsu, China

    Zhen Fang

  2. Graduate School of Environmental Studies, Tohoku University, Aoba-ku, Japan

    Richard L. Smith Jr

  3. Biomass Group, College of Engineering, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing, Jiangsu, China

    Lujiang Xu

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Kurian, J., Raghavan, G.S.V. (2020). Microwave-Assisted Pyrolysis of Biomass: An Overview. In: Fang, Z., Smith Jr, R.L., Xu, L. (eds) Production of Biofuels and Chemicals with Pyrolysis. Biofuels and Biorefineries, vol 10. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-2732-6_7

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