89. Suchithra
Thangalazhy-Gopakumar, Sushil Adhikari, Shyamsundar Ayalur Chattanathan, Ram B. Gupta, Catalytic pyrolysis of green
algae for hydrocarbon production using H+ZSM-5 catalyst, Bioresource
Technology 2012 118, 150-157.
Abstract
Microalgae
are considered as an intriguing candidate for biofuel production due to their
high biomass yield. Studies on bio-oil production through fast pyrolysis and
upgrading to hydrocarbon fuels using algal biomass are limited as compared to
other terrestrial biomass. Therefore, in this study, a fresh water green alga,
Chlorella vulgaris, was taken for pyrolysis study. The average activation energy for pyrolysis zone was found to be 109.1 kJ/mol. Fixed-bed pyrolysis of
algae gave a bio-oil yield
of 52.7 wt.%, which accounts for 60.7 wt.%
carbon yield. In addition, analytical pyrolysis of C. vulgaris was
carried out in a
Py/GC–MS to identify major compounds present in bio-oil with and without catalyst (H+ZSM-5).
The study found that in catalytic-pyrolysis, as the catalyst loading increased from zero to
nine times of the biomass, the carbon yield of aromatic hydrocarbons increased
from 0.9 to 25.8 wt.%.
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