Comparative studies of products produced from four different biomass samples via deoxy-liquefaction

The objective of this study is to investigate the distribution of products, i.e. gas, liquid oil and char from four different biomass samples (legume straw, corn stalk, cotton stalk and wheat straw) and analysis of the oil for the differences in the hydrocarbon composition with respect to the materials by deoxygenate liquefaction (abbr. deoxy-liquefaction). GC/MS was used to analyze the gas and oil components. According to the similarity of the natural petroleum and bio-petroleum, a new standard for bio-petroleum was established in this paper. The striking characteristic of the bio-petroleum was H/C > 1.5, oxygen content <6% and the HHV > 40 MJ/kg, containing mainly alkanes, cycloalkanes and aromatic hydrocarbons. In this paper, only the oil produced from legume straw and corn stalk could be called bio-petroleum. The oil derived from different samples contained almost the same compounds, while the relative content varied based on the different content of the main biomass components (lignin and holocellulose). The gaseous products were carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, methane and hydrogen. In addition, small amount of ethylene, ethane and propane was also observed in gas. The major gas product was carbon dioxide (81.29–86.33%) for all samples.