Co-pyrolysis of lignocellulosic biomass and microalgae: Products characteristics and interaction effect

Co-pyrolysis of biomass has a potential to change the quality of pyrolytic bio-oil. In this work, co-pyrolysis of bamboo, a typical lignocellulosic biomass, and Nannochloropsis sp. (NS), a microalgae, was carried out in a fixed bed reactor at a range of mixing ratio of NS and bamboo, to find out whether the quality of pyrolytic bio-oil was improved. A significant improvement on bio-oil after co-pyrolysis of bamboo and NS was observed that bio-oil yield increased up to 66.63 wt% (at 1:1) and the content of long-chain fatty acids in bio-oil also dramatically increased (the maximum up to 50.92% (13.57 wt%) at 1:1) whereas acetic acid, O-containing species, and N-containing compounds decreased greatly. Nitrogen transformation mechanism during co-pyrolysis also was explored. Results showed that nitrogen in microalgae preferred to transform into solid char and gas phase during co-pyrolysis, while more pyrrolic-N and quaternary-N generated with diminishing protein-N and pyridinic-N in char.