Kinetics of the release of elemental precursors of syngas and syngas contaminants during devolatilization of switchgrass

In this study, the results from laboratory measurements of the devolatilization kinetics of switchgrass in a rapidly heated fixed bed reactor flushed with argon and operated at constant temperatures between 600 and 800 °C was reported. Results indicate that switchgrass decomposes in two sequential stages during pyrolysis: stage I involves the evaporation and devolatilization of water and extractives and stage II involves that of hemicellulose, cellulose, and lignin. The estimated global activation energy for stage II increased from 52.80 to 59.39 kJ/mol as the reactor temperature was increased from 600 to 800 °C. The maximum conversion of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, sulfur, and nitrogen ranged from 0.68 to 0.70, 0.90 to 0.95, 0.88 to 0.91, 0.70 to 0.80, and 0.55 to 0.66, respectively. The retention of alkali and alkaline earth metal (AAEM) species in the solid char after complete pyrolysis was significantly higher than in the original feed, indicating the importance of AAEM species in subsequent char processing.