From “Sirups” to Biocarbons: A 30 Year Research Cooperation for Better Biomass Utilization with Michael J. Antal, Jr

• Published in: Energy & fuels Vol. 30; no. 10; pp. 7887 - 7895
• Main Author: Várhegyi, Gábor
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: American Chemical Society 20.10.2016
• ISSN: 0887-0624; 1520-5029
• DOI: 10.1021/acs.energyfuels.6b00860

The results of a 30 year U.S.–Hungarian research cooperation are surveyed. The head of the cooperating U.S. laboratory, Michael J. Antal, Jr., died on Oct 21, 2015. He was a leading person in biomass research. The collaboration started with pyrolysis studies. In this phase of the work, the aim was to clarify the factors that enhance the formation of the valuable volatile products (“sirups”). For this purpose, the kinetics and mechanism of the biomass pyrolysis were studied with a particular emphasis on the behavior of the cellulose component. Later, the interest of the cooperation gradually shifted to the solid products of the pyrolysis: chars, charcoals, and biocarbons. Hence, the formation, properties, and uses of these products were studied. The present paper illustrates the 3 decades of the common work by selected results. Such examples are shown that (i) are thought to be useful in the planning of future studies on pyrolysis and combustion of biomass materials (ii) and/or may help in the interpretation of the existing literature data. The presented results include the choice of the proper experimental conditions, the evaluation of experiments with linear and nonlinear temperature programs by the method of least squares, the assessment of complex mechanism schemes by a suitable series of experiments, and the kinetic modeling of the combustion of inhomogeneous chars in the kinetic regime.