Fast pyrolysis of hot-water-extracted and delignified silver birch (Betula pendula) sawdust by Py-GC/MS

•Fast pyrolysis has been applied to various solid residues from hot-water-extracted birch sawdust.•Fast pyrolysis has been utilized in the integrated biorefinery concept of birch wood.•A basis of a rapid characterization method for lignocellulosics has been created.

The thermochemical behavior of birch (Betula pendula) sawdust both untreated and after various chemical treatments (hot-water extraction, delignification, and hot-water extraction followed by delignification) was investigated by pyrolysis-gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (Py-GC/MS). In each case, major GC-amenable condensable products were classified into several compound groups, and the formation of these monomer-related fragments from feedstock samples with varying mass portions of the structural constituents (cellulose, hemicelluloses, and lignin) were determined at 500 °C and 700 °C at hold times of 5 s and 20 s. The formation of pyrolysis products was shown to be characteristically dependent on feedstock composition as well as on pyrolysis conditions. This kind of approach was of practical importance with respect to efforts not only to develop rapid characterization tools for lignocellulosics, but also to new biorefinery possibilities to produce bio-oils, for example, enriched either with aliphatic or aromatic constituents.