Study on carbonization of nonwoody biomass species

Abstract

Carbonization of wood for the manufacture of charcoal has been practiced since the beginning of history. The Industrial Revolution brought about a heavy demand for wood charcoal, and up until the late 1800s the largest volume was used by the iron industry. Today, coal derived cokes are used and wood carbonization, and use of distillates, is practiced more in developing countries. Despite the decline of the traditional wood pyrolysis industries, a great deal of technical information regarding cellulose (and lignocellulosic) decomposition kinetics, mechanisms, thermodynamics and byproducts has been acquired using modern analytical techniques. Several different markets provided motivation for the pursuit of this information. Those markets include: activated carbons, textiles, composite materials, fire retardant wood products and energy from biomass and refuse. While much information is available from these works, there exists a gap in knowledge regarding monolithic carbonized wood. Specifically, no studies have been found relating to methods. Biomass, especially wood, has traditionally been an important source of energy particularly attractive nowadays because of its inherent nature of being environmentally friendly and renewable The aims of the present project work have been to characterize the proximate analysis and calorific value of different components of BANMICHAI (non woody biomass species). The second aim was to carbonize the different components in the temperature range of 300-900°C From the experiments we observed that there is a significant increase in the calorific value with increase in the carbonization temperature. Therefore it is evident that for higher carbonization temperature the biomass species i.e. BANMICHAI can suitably be preferred over other conventional sources of energy. Further with increase in the carbonization temperature the fixed carbon (%) was also found to increase. The calorific value obtained from different chars samples are found to be comparable to coal. Any approach towards utilizing the non-woody biomass would be a positive step toward energy and environment crisis.