Pyrolysis of Date palm waste in a fixed-bed reactor: Characterization of pyrolytic products

- Date Palm waste contain a high amount of volatile matter (around 78%).
- Higher bio-oil yield obtained (25.99 wt%) for Empty Fruit Bunches.
- Higher biochar and Syngas yield were obtained from Date Palm Leaflets.
- Obtained bio-oil could be used as liquid biofuels after upgrading.
- The maximum HHV were (25.16 and 24.21 MJ/kg) for biochar and bio-oil respectively.

The pyrolysis of several Tunisian Date Palm Wastes (DPW): Date Palm Rachis (DPR), Date Palm Leaflets (DPL), Empty Fruit Bunches (EFB) and Date Palm Glaich (DPG) was run using a fixed-bed reactor, from room temperature to 500 °C, with 15 °C/min as heating rate and −5 °C as condensation temperature, in order to produce bio-oil, biochar and syngas. In these conditions, the bio-oil yield ranges from 17.03 wt% for DPL to 25.99 wt% for EFB. For the biochar, the highest yield (36.66 wt%) was obtained for DPL and the lowest one (31.66 wt%) was obtained from DPG while the syngas production varies from 39.10 wt% for DPR to 46.31 wt% DPL. The raw material and pyrolysis products have been characterized using elemental analysis thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The syngas composition has been characterized using gas analyzer.