abstract
Charcoal production in Portugal is mostly based on the valorization of woody residues from cork oak and holm oak, the latter being considered a reference feedstock in the market. Nevertheless, since wildfire prevention became a priority in Portugal, after the recent dramatic wildfires, urgent actions are being conducted to reduce the fuel load in the forests, which is increasing the amount of biomass that is available for valorization. Additionally, biomass residues from agriculture, forest management, control of invasive species, partially burnt wood from post-fire recovery actions, and waste wood from storm devastated forests need also to be considered within the national biomass valorization policies. This has motivated the present work on whether the carbonization process can be used to valorize alternative woody biomasses not currently used on a large scale. For this purpose, slow pyrolysis experiments were carried out with ten types of wood, using a fixed bed reactor allowing the controlled heating of large fuel particles at 0.1 to 5 degrees C/min and final temperatures within 300-450 degrees C. Apart from an evaluation of the mass balance of the process, emphasis was given to the properties of the resulting charcoals considering its major market in Portugal-barbecue charcoal for both recreational and professional purposes.
keywords
BIOCHAR; PELLETS
subject category
Energy & Fuels
authors
Charvet, F; Silva, F; Ruivo, L; Tarelho, L; Matos, A; da Silva, JF; Neves, D
our authors
Daniel dos Santos Félix das Neves
Research Fellowship
Luís Carlos Marques Ruivo
PhD Studentacknowledgements
This research was funded by national funds through FCT-Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia, I.P./Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education, within the scope of the project CHARCLEAN (PCIF/GVB/0179/2017), CESAM (UIDP/50017/2020+UIDB/50017/2020) and Ph.D. scholarship (SFRH/BD/129901/2017).