Effect of temperature and heating rate on product distribution from the pyrolysis of sugarcane bagasse in a hot plate reactor

• A new hot plate experimental set up was built to study sugarcane bagasse pyrolysis.
• At high temperatures and heating rates the yield of oligomers increased.
• The heating rate is important till 100 °C/s, no significant changes in product yields are observed at higher heating rates.

This paper reports studies on the film pyrolysis of sugarcane bagasse in an electrically heated hot plate reactor. The new experimental set up used is described. The bagasse studied was ground to particle sizes less than 37 μm (mesh 400) and was mixed with water to form the paste to be used to form the biomass film (10 mg of sugarcane bagasse distributed evenly on a steel plate, 60 μm thick). All the tests were conducted under vacuum (150 mbar). The effect of heating rate (between 5 and 1200 °C/s) and final temperatures (between 250 and 650 °C) on product yields (permanent gases, water, light volatile, pyrolytic lignin, sugars and char) were studied. The yield of fragmentation and dehydration products increased as heating rates augment. The effect of heating rate is only important till 100 °C/s, no significant changes in product yields are observed at higher heating rates. Bio-oils enriched in lignin and sugars oligomers were obtained at high temperatures and heating rates. These results suggest that good yields of fermentable sugars may be obtained in pyrolysis reactors working at intermediary pyrolysis conditions.