Flash Carbonization of Biomass - American Chemical Society

content of the feedstock. Biomass feedstocks included woods (Leucaena and oak) and agricultural byproducts (macadamia nut shells and corncob). In the ...
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Ind. Eng. Chem. Res. 2003, 42, 3690-3699

Flash Carbonization of Biomass Michael Jerry Antal, Jr.,* Kazuhiro Mochidzuki, and Lloyd S. Paredes Hawaii Natural Energy Institute, School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, Hawaii 96822

We describe the ignition and control of a flash fire at elevated pressure (≈1 MPa) within a packed bed of biomass. The fire moves upward through the bed, against the downward flow of air, triggering the transformation of biomass into gas at elevated pressure, and charcoal with fixedcarbon yields that reach the thermochemical equilibrium “limit” in