Flash Pyrolysis of Lemon Grass (Cymbopogon flexuosus) for Bio-oil Production in an Electrically Heated Fluidized Bed Reactor

Bio-oil, a hopeful substitute as an alternative fuel has gained significant attention due to the predicted shortness of conventional fuels and environmental concern. Bio-oils have attracted a lot of interest, as they are liquid energy carriers and general sources of chemicals. In this study, the pyrolysis characteristics of lemon grass were studied to evaluate their potential use as source of bio-oil. Flash pyrolysis of the lemon grass was carried out on a fluidized bed reactor with nitrogen gas atmosphere. The effects of operating parameters such as temperature, particle size and sweep (nitrogen) gas flow rate were investigated. During this study, the maximum yield of pyrolysis bio-oil 50.6 wt% can be achieved under the operation conditions of 450 degrees C process temperature, 1.0 mm particle size at sweep gas flow rate of 1.75 m(3)/h. At the end of the study the bio-oil obtained from the flash pyrolysis was analyzed for physical, elemental and chemical compositions by using Fourier transform infra-red (FTIR) spectroscopy, gas chromatography mass spectroscopy (GC-MS) and H-1 NMR spectroscopy.