Plasma pyrolysis of biomass for production of syngas and carbon adsorbent

A radio-frequency (RF) plasma pyrolysis reactor was presented in this paper. Application of this reactor to the pyrolysis treatment of biomass at different operating pressures (3000-8000 Pa), with various input powers (1600-2000 W), was investigated. Interest was focused on the effect of the pyrolysis conditions on the yield of gas and char, the gas composition, and the quality of the char. On average, the gas yield can reach 66 wt % of the biomass feed at an input power of 1800 W and an operating pressure of 5000 Pa. The total content of CO and H-2 in the gas product reached 76 vol % on a nitrogen-free basis, which can be used as syngas components. The obtained solid product has a large Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) surface area and high pore volume, with a significant prevalence of micropores, and may have potential use as an activated carbon.