Biomass pyrolysis is an appealing route for producing fuel and chemicals from renewable resources. Detailed chemical models of pyrolysis chemistry are necessary to optimize the production and composition of bio-oil during pyrolysis. Cellulose, the most abundant biopolymer in lignocellulosic biomass, initially reacts through a short-lived liquid intermediate species which controls the chemistry and determines the composition of bio-oil
[1]. In this work, a novel millisecond pulse reactor system known as PHASR (Pulse Heated Analysis of Solid Reactions)
[2] is used to study the kinetics of the initiation chemistry of cellulose between 385
0C and 500
0C
[3]. Using a cellulose surrogate, α-cyclodextrin
[4], the energetics for the initiation chemistry were characterized by measuring conversion from 20 ms to 20 sec. Cellulose decomposition initiation undergoes two distinct kinetic regimes of intra-chain scission; low-temperature glycosidic bond cleavage (T< 467
0C) with a low apparent activation energy and high-temperature glycosidic bond cleavage (T>467
0C).
References:
1.Dauenhauer, P. J.; Colby, J. L.; Balonek, C. M.; Suszynski, W. J.; Schmidt, L. D., Reactive boiling of cellulose for integrated catalysis through an intermediate liquid. Green Chemistry 2009, 11, (10), 1555-1561.
2.Krumm, C.; Pfaendtner, J.; Dauenhauer, P.J., Millisecond pulsed films unify the mechanisms of cellulose fragmentation. Chemistry of Materials 2016, 28, 3108-3114.
3. Zhu, C.; Krumm, C.; Facas, G. G.; Neurock, M.; Dauenhauer, P.J., Energetics of cellulose glycosidic bond cleavage. Reaction Chemistry and Engineering 2017, 2, 201-214.
4. Mettler, M. S.; Mushrif, S. H.; Paulsen, A. D.; Javadekar, A. D.; Vlachos, D. G.; Dauenhauer, P. J., Revealing pyrolysis chemistry for biofuels production: Conversion of cellulose to furans and small oxygenates. Energy & Environmental Science 2012, 5, (1), 5414-5424.