Biomass and Bioenergy 27 (2004) 445–457
Influence of pretreatment for deashing of sugarcane bagasse
on pyrolysis products
Piyali Das
a
, Anuradda Ganesh
a,
Ã
, Pramod Wangikar
b
a
Energy Systems Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Powai, Mumbai 400076, India
b
Department of Chemical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Powai, Mumbai 400076, India
Received 3 February 2003; received in revised form 4 December 2003; accepted 29 April 2004
Abstract
This paper reports the studies made on the vacuum pyrolysis of deashed sugarcane bagasse, on the pyrolysis
products. The present work is with an objective to understand the change in the quantity and quality of the oil fraction
obtained from pyrolysis, upon pretreatment for deashing of original biomass. Ash, in the entrained char is believed to
be catalyzing the polymerization reaction in the oils and thereby increases the viscosity. Three different pre-treatment
processes used for deashing are water leaching, mild acid treatment with HCl and mild acid treatment with HF.
1
The
study indicates the remarkable influence of pretreatment process for deashing, by enhancing the total energy
distribution in oil fraction of the pyrolysis products. This is attributed to selective removal of ash elements along with
removal of extractives and hemicellulose in different proportions. However, it was found that the pre-treatments do not
improve the stability of oil. The water leachate, as expected, showed potential of making ethanol via fermentation.
r 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Sugarcane bagasse; Leaching; Acid wash; Deashing; Stability; Vacuum pyrolysis
1. Introduction
Sugarcane bagasse—the residue left after juice
extraction is a waste available in abundance
worldwide. About 1.34 Gt of sugarcane was
produced globally in 1999, which equates to
approximately 375 MT of bagasse, 50% of which
is typically burned [1]. India is the second largest
producer of sugarcane next to Brazil with a
production of 300 MT of sugarcane in
1999–2000. In India, about 4 million hectares of
land is under sugarcane farming with an average
yield of 70 t ha
À1
. Besides Brazil and India,
Australia, South Africa, Cuba, China, tropical
and subtropical countries also are major contri-
butors to world production of sugarcane. Thus,
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doi:10.1016/j.biombioe.2004.04.002
Ã
Corresponding author. Tel.: +91-22-2576-7886; fax: +91-
22-2572-6875.
E-mail address: aganesh@me.iitb.ac.in (A. Ganesh).
1
The HF has been used only to achieve complete removal of
ash for the present study and by no means a suggestion toward
using for commercial application.