Volume 3: Innovative Solutions for Energy Transitions: Part II

The Study of Lignocellulosic Biomass Pyrolysis via Superpro Designer Yoong Xin Pang, Yuxin Yan, Dominic C.Y. Foo, Nusrat Sharmin, Haitao Zhao, Edward Lester, Tao Wu, Cheng Heng Pang

Abstract

The renewable energy industry is widely utilizing biomass as one of the extraction sources. Pyrolysis is among the most commonly used technique to process biomass into desired fuels. Biomass mainly consist of cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin that will decompose differently during pyrolysis yielding valuable bio-oil, biogas and bio-char. Traditional experimental work to study biomass pyrolysis could be complex and time consuming. This study has utilized SuperPro Designer (SPD) as a modelling tool to investigate the pyrolytic behavior of biomass constituents and product distributions. The model was built based on kinetic studies of lignocellulosic reaction pathways. The obtained results were verified with experimental as well as literature data. The flexibility and accuracy of SPD model were also tested with different biomass species. The model was validated and can be used as a predictive and optimization tool for the study of biomass pyrolysis.

Keywords renewable energy sources, biomass, pyrolysis, kinetics, mathematical modelling