Pyrolysis of sweet orange (Citrus sinensis) dry peel

Three different products were obtained from the pyrolysis of dry peel sweet orange: bio-oil, char and non-condensable gases. The yield of each product was determined. The bio-oil was characterized by GC-MS to determine that can be used as a renewable source of valuable industrial chemicals or as a source of energy, high heating value was calculated by Channiwala and Parikh correlation based on Dulong's Formula. Thermogravimetric analysis at 1, 5, 10, 20, and 40 degrees C/min, shows three different overlapped steps resulting in an average mass loss of similar to 80% within the temperature range of 114-569 degrees C. The bench scale pyrolysis experiments, produces average yields of 53.1, 21.1 and 25.8 wt.% for bio-oil, char and gases, respectively. Bio-oil characterization by GC-MS and FTIR identified limonene as its main component while other identified compounds included delta-limonene, alcohols, phenols, benzene, toluene, xylene and carboxylic acids. (C) 2009 Published by Elsevier B.V.