Invited Talk: Continuous Thermal Conversion of Waste Lignin and Application of Lignin Derived Biochar for the Production of Valuable Compounds
E2S2 CREATE and AIChE Waste Management Conference
2019
2019 E2S2-CREATE and AIChE Waste Management Conference
Abstract Submissions
Section C - Topic 3, Keynote and Oral Presentation
Wednesday, March 13, 2019 - 9:55am to 10:15am
Recently, large amount of waste lignin has been produced from the bioalcohol (ethanol, butanol) synthesis process using lignocelluosic biomass as feed materials. Also, many researches have been performed for the conversion of waste lignin to valuable monomeric phenolics using fast pyrolysis process to increase the economic feasibility of bioalcohol production process. However, lignin is difficult to be converted effectively to liquid fuels because of its complex structure and thermal stability. Especially, melting of lignin and foaming and agglomeration of char during pyrolysis make a continuous lignin pyrolysis process difficult in a conventional fluidized reactor. Therefore, the foaming and agglomeration of lignin char needs to be minimized by developing a new reactor.
In this study, fast pyrolysis of lignin was carried out using a newly developed bench scale rotary kiln reactor. Initially alumina ball was filled in the reactor. Lignin was then fed into the rotary kiln reactor with a feeding rate of 100g/h. Various kinds of lignin such as kraft lignin, organosolv lignin, butanol production waste lignin, and black liquor lignin were tested. By using this new rotary kiln reactor, the agglomeration and foaming of char did not occurr. Also, highly valuable monomeric phenolics were obtained as the main products. Furthermore, lignin-derived biochar with Ni impregnation was applied to the gasification of biomass and was found to produce higher amount of hydrogen gas than commercial Ni/alumina catalyst.
This work was supported by the New and Renewable Energy Core Technology Program of the Korea Institute of Energy Technology Evaluation and Planning, granted financial resource from the Ministry of Trade, Industry & Energy, Republic of Korea (No. 20173010092430). Also, this work was supported by the National Research Council of Science & Technology (NST) grant by the Korea government (MSIP) No. CAP-16-05-KIMM.