Affiliations 

  • 1 Department of Chemical Engineering, Khalifa University, P.O. Box 127788, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
  • 2 Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Engineering & Technology Peshawar, Pakistan
  • 3 Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering, King Abdulaziz University, Rabigh, Saudi Arabia
  • 4 Department of Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Science and Engineering, University of Nottingham Malaysia, 43500, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia
  • 5 Department of Chemical Engineering, Khalifa University, P.O. Box 127788, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. Electronic address: fawzi.banat@ku.ac.ae
Chemosphere, 2021 Nov;283:131162.
PMID: 34157626 DOI: 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2021.131162

Abstract

Pyrolysis of agricultural biomass is a promising technique for producing renewable energy and effectively managing solid waste. In this study, groundnut shell (GNS) was processed at 500 °C in an inert gas atmosphere with a gas flow rate and a heating rate of 10 mL/min and 10 °C/min, respectively, in a custom-designed fluidized bed pyrolytic-reactor. Under optimal operating conditions, the GNS-derived pyrolytic-oil yield was 62.8 wt.%, with the corresponding biochar (19.5 wt.%) and biogas yields (17.7 wt.%). The GC-MS analysis of the GNS-based bio-oil confirmed the presence of (trifluoromethyl)pyridin-2-amine (18.814%), 2-Fluoroformyl-3,3,4,4-tetrafluoro-1,2-oxazetidine (16.23%), 5,7-dimethyl-1H-Indazole (11.613%), N-methyl-N-nitropropan-2-amine (6.5%) and butyl piperidino sulfone (5.668%) as major components, which are used as building blocks in the biofuel, pharmaceutical, and food industries. Furthermore, a 2 × 5 × 1 artificial neural network (ANN) architecture was developed to predict the decomposition behavior of GNS at heating rates of 5, 10, and 20 °C/min, while the thermodynamic and kinetic parameters were estimated using a non-isothermal model-free method. The Popescu method predicted activation energy (Ea) of GNS biomass ranging from 111 kJ/mol to 260 kJ/mol, with changes in enthalpy (ΔH), Gibbs-free energy (ΔG), and entropy (ΔS) ranging from 106 to 254 kJ/mol, 162-241 kJ/mol, and -0.0937 to 0.0598 kJ/mol/K, respectively. The extraction of high-quality precursors from GNS pyrolysis was demonstrated in this study, as well as the usefulness of the ANN technique for thermogravimetric analysis of biomass.

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.