Energy Fuels 2010, 24, 5669–5676 Published on Web 09/14/2010
: DOI:10.1021/ef1008117
Bioslurry as a Fuel. 3. Fuel and Rheological Properties of Bioslurry Prepared from the Bio-oil and Biochar of Mallee Biomass Fast Pyrolysis Hanisom Abdullah, Daniel Mourant, Chun-Zhu Li, and Hongwei Wu* Curtin Centre for Advanced Energy Science and Engineering, Department of Chemical Engineering, Curtin University of Technology, GPO Box U1987, Perth, Western Australia 6845, Australia Received June 27, 2010. Revised Manuscript Received September 2, 2010
This study investigates fuel and rheological properties of bio-oil/char slurry (i.e., bioslurry) fuels, which were prepared by mixing bio-oil with different concentrations of biochar. The bio-oil and biochar were produced from mallee fast pyrolysis at 500 °C. The excellent grindability of biochar enables desirable particle size reduction of biochar into fine particles, which can be suspended into bio-oil for the preparation of bioslurry fuels. The bioslurry fuels have desired fuel and rheological characteristics, which meet the requirements for combustion and gasification applications. Dependent upon biochar loading, the volumetric energy density of bioslurry is up to 23.2 GJ/m3, achieving a significant energy densification (by a factor >4) in comparison to green wood chips. Bioslurry fuels with high biochar concentrations (11-20 wt %) show non-Newtonian characteristics with pseudo-plastic behavior. The flow behavior index, n, decreases with an increasing biochar concentration. Bioslurry with higher biochar concentrations also demonstrate thixotropic behavior. The bioslurry fuels also have low viscosity (
