Rapid and slow pyrolysis of pistachio shell: Effect of pyrolysis conditions on the product yields and characterization of the liquid product

Abstract

This study reports the experimental results for the pyrolysis of pistachio shell under different conditions in a tubular reactor under a nitrogen flow. For the different conditions of pyrolysis temperature, nitrogen flow rate and heating rate, pyrolysis temperature of 773 K gave the highest bio-oil yield with a value of 27.7% when the heating rate and carrier gas flow rate were chosen as 300 K min(-1) and 100 cm(3) min(-1) respectively. Column chromatography was applied to this bio-oil and its subfractions were characterized by elemental analysis, FT-IR and H-1-NMR. Aliphatic subfraction was conducted to gas chromatography mass spectroscopy for further characterization. The results for the characterization show that using pistachio shell as a renewable source to produce valuable liquid products is applicable via pyrolysis. Copyright (c) 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.