The effect of biomass torrefaction on the catalytic pyrolysis of Korean cork oak

In this study, the effect of biomass torrefaction on the thermal and catalytic pyrolysis of cork oak was investigated. The thermal and catalytic pyrolysis behavior of cork oak (CO) and torrefied CO (TCO) were evaluated by comparing their thermogra-vimetric (TG) analysis results and product distributions of bio-oils obtained from the fast pyrolysis using a fixed bed reactor. TG and differential TG (DTG) curves of CO and TCO revealed that the elimination amount of hemicellulose in CO increased by applying the higher torrefaction temperature and longer torrefaction time. CO torrefaction also decreased the oil yield but increased that of solid char during the pyrolysis because the contents of cellulose and lignin in CO increased due to the elimination of hemicellulose during torrefaction. Selectivities of the levoglucosan and phenolics in TCO pyrolysis oil were higher than those in CO pyrolysis oil. The content of aromatic hydrocarbons in bio-oil increased by applying the catalytic pyrolysis of CO and TCO over HZSM-5 (SiO₂/Al₂O₃ = 30). Compared to CO, TCO showed the higher efficiency on the formation of aromatic hydrocarbons via the catalytic pyrolysis over HZSM-5 and the efficiency was maximized by applying the higher torrefaction and catalytic pyrolysis reaction temperatures of 280 and 600 °C, respectively.