Effect of temperature and feed rate on pyrolysis oil produced via helical screw fluidized bed reactor

A series of experiments was conducted to study the effect of temperature and feed rate on physicochemical properties and yield of bio-oil. The experiments were performed in a helical screw fluidized bed reactor and about 150-gram palm shell (PS) was pyrolyzed in each run at 275 °C/min heating rate. The first set of experiments was conducted at temperature ranging from 400 to 650 °C without using any inert gas for fluidization. While the second set of experiments were performed at feed rates ranging from 3 to 25 g/min in order to investigate the effects of feed rate on pyrolytic products. Results showed that the bio-oil yield was increased with the increase in temperature and feed rate due to the enhanced biomass volatilization. In a similar vein to this, a greater extent in oxygenates cracking was also noted in the bio-oil. A maximum liquid yield of about 72.84 wt% was obtained at 500 °C, while 72.92 wt% liquid yield was obtained with 25 g/min feed rate. The HHV of bio-oil was also increased from 38.52 to 43.13 MJ/kg when pyrolysis temperature was increased from 400 to 650 °C.