Design, Fabrication and Performance Study of a Biomass Solid Waste Pyrolysis System for Alternative Liquid Fuel Production (original) (raw)

A laboratory scale fluidized bed pyrolysis system has been designed and fabricated for obtaining liquid fuel from biomass solid wastes. The components of the system are: fluidized bed reactor, gas preheating chamber, reactor feeder, heating system, heater feeder, liquid condenser and liquid collectors. The reactor operating parameters and dimensions have been considered on the basis of cold model study and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) of the feedstock. The major components made of stainless steel. A number of trial runs have been carried out with jute-stick as feedstock. At an optimum pyrolysis condition of fluidized bed temperature of 425 o C with 300-600µm feed particle size and 30 l/min fluidizing gas flow rate, the oil product is found to be 50 wt% of dry biomass feed. The oil obtained at this optimum condition is analyzed for their fuel properties-compared with other biomass pyrolysis oils and petroleum product. The fuel properties compared are physical properties, calorific value, elemental (CHNOS) analysis and chemical composition using FTIR spectroscopy.