Pyrolysis of rapeseed oil cake in a fixed bed reactor to produce bio-oil

Abstract With increasing environmental issues, production of bio-fuel represents a viable source of renewable energy and constitutes an alternative for the replacement of fossil fuel and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. In this paper, the effect of particle size, pyrolysis temperature, carrier gas flow rate (N 2 ) was analyzed for obtaining of bio-oil from pyrolysis process of rapeseed oil cake. Optimum parameters obtained for the maximum liquid quantity and bio-oil yield (≈49.8% and 38.7%, respectively) were particle size range ≤0.5 mm, 500°C and 100 mL/min (N 2 ) carrier gas flow rate. The calorific value of bio-oil was of 36.25 MJ/kg and the characterization of bio-oil was performed by FTIR, GC–MS and NMR and this demonstrates that can be a viable alternative fuel for public transport and agriculture sectors.