Res. Agr. Eng., 2020, 66(1):8-17 | DOI: 10.17221/26/2019-RAE

Pyrolysis of wheat and barley strawOriginal Paper

Anežka Sedmihradská^1,2, Michael Pohořelý^*,1,2, Petr Jevič³, Siarhei Skoblia², Zdeněk Beňo², Josef Farták², Bohumír Čech⁴, Miloslav Hartman^1,4

¹ Institute of Chemical Process Fundamentals of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic

² Department of Power Engineering & Department of Gaseous and Solid Fuels and Air Protection, Faculty of Environmental Technology, University of Chemistry and Technology Prague, Prague, Czech Republic

³ Research Institute of Agricultural Engineering, p.r. Prague, Czech Republic

⁴ ENET Centre, Technical University of Ostrava, Ostrava, Czech Republic

Pyrolysing agricultural crop residues and other biomass constitutes a newer method of transforming often difficult, waste materials into a novel type of soil amendment/additive. Simultaneously, this process also makes it possible to exploit part of the energy released in the agricultural production. Biochar, viewed as the solid product of biomass pyrolysis, is a remarkable, porous material, rich in carbon. Two agricultural crop residues, such as wheat and barley straw, were selected for the experimental studies. The results indicate that the practical temperature for the production of biochar from the two explored materials occurs in the vicinity of 600 °C. Starting at this temperature, the biochar produced complies safely with the principal European Biochar Certificate standards (EBC 2012). Thus, for the wheat straw and barley straw - originated char, the content of the carbon amounts to 67.2 and 67.0 mass %, the atomic ratio H : C is as large as 0.032 and 0.026, and the specific surface area amounts to 217 and 201 m².g^-1, respectively.

Keywords: carbonization; thermolysis; biomass; biochar; crop residue

Published: March 31, 2020  Show citation