Pyrolysis of biomass: analytical study on a novel in-situ derivatisation in catalytic conditions

Pyrolysis of biomass has been widely investigated as a thermochemical method for the production of a liquid material (bio-oil) to be employed as a fuel and a source of chemicals. Besides benefits deriving from environmental and economical considerations, bio-oil has several drawbacks for the occurrence of polar organic compounds in the pyrolysate. In this context, it is worth considering derivatisation of the reactive polar groups of the pyrolysis products to increase volatility and decrease polarity of the pyrolysate. In this study, off-line analytical pyrolysis (Py) by means of a heated filament pyrolyser combined with gas chromatographymass spectrometry (GC-MS) analysis was applied to the evaluation of several derivatising reagents and solid materials to be used in-situ with pyrolysis of biomass. Besides traditional derivatising reagents employed with pyrolysis for methylation (tetramethylammonium hydroxide, TMAH) and silylation (hexamethyldisilazane, HMDS), the attention was focused to dimethyl carbonate (DMC), a widely investigated methylating reagent in synthetic ‘green chemistry’. Pyrolysis experiments were performed in the presence of various catalysts including zeolites. Key words: pyrolysis, catalytic conversion, biomass pre-treatment