Investigating the Pyrolysis Properties of Cellulose and Lignin Isolated from Different Turkish Biomass Using TG-FTIR

Abstract

In this study, the devolatilization behavior of eastern Mediterranean hazelnut, almond, and sunflower residue was studied using a TGA–FTIR laboratory-scale setup. The original biomasses were fractionated using the Van Soest detergent analysis. Both the original and fractionated biomasses were investigated. The reaction temperature was increased to 900 °C using a heating rate of 2 °Cmin⁻¹. The pyrolysis of lignin produced the largest gas production, with CO₂ constituting up the bulk of the gas mixture. CO is the second highest-yield gas and is primarily formed from the samples of cellulose and lignin. For the lignin samples, the pyrolysis operation yielded the maximum amount of char, while the combustion of the lignin chars produced the highest amount of gas yields. On the other hand, lignin samples, particularly almond lignin, have the lowest tar production. Due to the high ash content the sunflower stalk sample devolatilized at a lower temperature with respect to the rest of the samples, resulting at a mass loss peak at lower temperature. The hazelnut lignin showed the mass loss peak at the highest temperature. Generally, CO₂ showed the highest mass yield, and it was mainly produced from the cellulose and whole biomass samples. Among all samples CH₄ was produced in minor quantities and mostly in lignin devolatilization. Furthermore, the devolatilization behavior of the fractionated biopolymers is not enough to sufficiently predict the behavior of the whole biomass sample. The results described in this paper can help further the understanding of thermal processes where almond, hazelnut, and sunflower residues from the eastern Mediterranean region, and their fractionated-derived products are involved.