TY - JOUR
T1 - Materials, fuels, upgrading, economy, and life cycle assessment of the pyrolysis of algal and lignocellulosic biomass
T2 - a review
AU - Osman, Ahmed I.
AU - Farghali, Mohamed
AU - Ihara, Ikko
AU - Elgarahy, Ahmed M.
AU - Ayyad, Amir
AU - Mehta, Neha
AU - Ng, Kim Hoong
AU - Abd El-Monaem, Eman M.
AU - Eltaweil, Abdelazeem S.
AU - Hosny, Mohamed
AU - Hamed, Seham M.
AU - Fawzy, Samer
AU - Yap, Pow Seng
AU - Rooney, David W.
PY - 2023/6
Y1 - 2023/6
N2 - Climate change issues are calling for advanced methods to produce materials and fuels in a carbon–neutral and circular way. For instance, biomass pyrolysis has been intensely investigated during the last years. Here we review the pyrolysis of algal and lignocellulosic biomass with focus on pyrolysis products and mechanisms, oil upgrading, combining pyrolysis and anaerobic digestion, economy, and life cycle assessment. Products include oil, gas, and biochar. Upgrading techniques comprise hot vapor filtration, solvent addition, emulsification, esterification and transesterification, hydrotreatment, steam reforming, and the use of supercritical fluids. We examined the economic viability in terms of profitability, internal rate of return, return on investment, carbon removal service, product pricing, and net present value. We also reviewed 20 recent studies of life cycle assessment. We found that the pyrolysis method highly influenced product yield, ranging from 9.07 to 40.59% for oil, from 10.1 to 41.25% for biochar, and from 11.93 to 28.16% for syngas. Feedstock type, pyrolytic temperature, heating rate, and reaction retention time were the main factors controlling the distribution of pyrolysis products. Pyrolysis mechanisms include bond breaking, cracking, polymerization and re-polymerization, and fragmentation. Biochar from residual forestry could sequester 2.74 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per ton biochar when applied to the soil and has thus the potential to remove 0.2–2.75 gigatons of atmospheric carbon dioxide annually. The generation of biochar and bio-oil from the pyrolysis process is estimated to be economically feasible.
AB - Climate change issues are calling for advanced methods to produce materials and fuels in a carbon–neutral and circular way. For instance, biomass pyrolysis has been intensely investigated during the last years. Here we review the pyrolysis of algal and lignocellulosic biomass with focus on pyrolysis products and mechanisms, oil upgrading, combining pyrolysis and anaerobic digestion, economy, and life cycle assessment. Products include oil, gas, and biochar. Upgrading techniques comprise hot vapor filtration, solvent addition, emulsification, esterification and transesterification, hydrotreatment, steam reforming, and the use of supercritical fluids. We examined the economic viability in terms of profitability, internal rate of return, return on investment, carbon removal service, product pricing, and net present value. We also reviewed 20 recent studies of life cycle assessment. We found that the pyrolysis method highly influenced product yield, ranging from 9.07 to 40.59% for oil, from 10.1 to 41.25% for biochar, and from 11.93 to 28.16% for syngas. Feedstock type, pyrolytic temperature, heating rate, and reaction retention time were the main factors controlling the distribution of pyrolysis products. Pyrolysis mechanisms include bond breaking, cracking, polymerization and re-polymerization, and fragmentation. Biochar from residual forestry could sequester 2.74 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per ton biochar when applied to the soil and has thus the potential to remove 0.2–2.75 gigatons of atmospheric carbon dioxide annually. The generation of biochar and bio-oil from the pyrolysis process is estimated to be economically feasible.
KW - Biomass
KW - Economic and life cycle assessment
KW - Product distribution
KW - Pyrolysis
KW - Pyrolysis integration
KW - Pyrolysis upgrading
KW - Review Article
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85148615526&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s10311-023-01573-7
DO - 10.1007/s10311-023-01573-7
M3 - Review article
AN - SCOPUS:85148615526
SN - 1610-3653
VL - 21
SP - 1419
EP - 1476
JO - Environmental Chemistry Letters
JF - Environmental Chemistry Letters
IS - 3
ER -