Bio-oil derived from banana pseudo-stem via fast pyrolysis process

Banana pseudo-stem (BPS) is one of wastes generated in banana plantation. The utilization of BPS as raw feedstock in biomass conversion has been considered as a promising way in reducing the abundance of biomass waste. The fast pyrolysis of BPS is investigated in this study in order to determine the optimum vapour residence time and pyrolysis temperature to produce maximum liquids yield. The elemental, proximate and lignocellulosic analyses were carried out to determine the properties of raw BPS and the thermal degradation behaviour was analysed by TGA. BPS was then pyrolyzed in a fluidized bed reactor with a nominal capacity of 300 g/h to study the impact of key variables: residence times in the range range 0.9?1.2 s and pyrolysis temperature in the range 470?540 ?C. The particle size range of BPS was set in the range of 400?600 ?m. The results showed that the optimum pyrolysis temperature and residence time are 500 ?C and 1.02 s respectively. At this optimum pyrolysis condition, 39.4 mf wt% of total liquid yield was obtained. The high heating value of BPS liquid obtained in this study is around 5.35 MJ/kg. The BPS bio-oil were also found to have common functional groups and chemical compounds related to phenols.