Experimental studies on thermal and catalytic pyrolysis behaviour of biomass to produce bio oil and the thermal performance of bio oil in ci engine

Abstract

Biomass is considered to be a potential sustainable green energy source and is being explored by research community across the globe to maximize the benefits, mainly as an alternative energy source to fossil fuel. newlineBiomass as an energy source is abundant in nature and CO2 neutral which newlinehelps mitigating many of the global issues like global warming, acid rain, newlinedepleting fossil crude reserve, etc. However energy density of biomass is far newlineless than fossil fuel, if it is used as raw wood. Extraction of bio oil from newlinebio mass improves the energy density, but the high Free Fatty Acid (FFA) newlinecontent in crushed seed bio oil makes it difficult to transesterify into bio fuel newlinedue to saponification effect. Attempts to esterify the high FFA bio oil prior to newlinetransesterification seem to produce good results but the processes involved are newlinemore complicated and costly. Pyrolysis is a thermo chemical decomposition process widely usedto convert biomass into liquid, solid, and gaseous products namely bio oil, bio char and flue gas respectively, by subjecting the biomass to sudden high temperature in the absence of oxygen. Pyrolysis bio oil and flue gas are being tried out as an energy sources especially in IC engines as alternative fuel. Bio char can also be used as heat energy source but it serves well as soil amendment and carbon sequestration to enhance agricultural productivity. However pyrolysis bio oil is inferior in terms of fuel properties like heating value, pH, viscosity, density etc compared to fossil diesel, which hinder its usage as alternate fuel to replace the fossil counterpart newline newline