Thermal degradation behavior and kinetic modeling of green solvents-delignified biomass: a sustainable biomass-to-energy approach

Wen, Andy Law Kai and Chew, Jiuan Jing and Yiin, Chung Loong and Lock, Serene Sow Mun (2022) Thermal degradation behavior and kinetic modeling of green solvents-delignified biomass: a sustainable biomass-to-energy approach. In: Value-Chain of Biofuels : Fundamentals, Technology, and Standardization. Elsevier, United States, pp. 89-103. ISBN 978-0-12-824388-6

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Abstract

The vast amount of empty fruit bunches (EFBs), which are generated in line with the huge production of crude palm oil in Malaysia, poses significant threats to the environment. In this sense, low-transition-temperature-mixtures (LTTMs) have been recognized as promising green solvents for the pretreatment of biomass as they are of low cost, easy to prepare, and environmental friendly with high delignification selectivity, which also improve the thermal degradation and hydrolysis performance of biomass. The delignification efficiency of LTTMs synthesized from malic acid-sucrose-water was investigated under various pretreatment temperatures, and the optimum temperature was identified to be 90°C. The delignified EFBs were applied in thermogravimetric analysis in order to study the effect of heating rates on their pyrolytic behaviors. Based on the differential thermogravimetric curves, the peaks of the maximum degradation temperature were moved to higher values with increasing heating rates. Iso-conversional Kissinger-Akahira-Sunose (KAS) model was applied in the kinetic modeling of the pyrolysis of delignified EFBs. The estimated activation energy for the untreated EFBs varied within the range of 42.27–254.16 kJ mol−1 while for the delignified EFBs were within the range of 57.73–262.12 kJ mol−1. This showed that the EFBs attained higher molecular stability after pretreatment using the LTTMs.

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