Biocarbon Production from Different Agricultural Wastes: Optimization, Characterization and Applications.

San Luis Potosí

Congreso; 4 Taller Latinoamericano de Materiales de Carbono; 2021

The constant increase in agricultural production is making a high amount of waste andtherefore, environmental pollution rises as well. This has been moving upwards theinterest in different processes that allow reusing of agricultural wastes and give themadded value. Between the strategies for transforming wastes, pyrolysis is a promisingtechnique. Pyrolysis consists of thermal treatment of biomass in absence of oxygen thatcan generate carbon, bio-oil, and gaseous products for different applications. Thisversatile process may be employed to reuse almost any biomass residue and thusreduce the environmental impact generated by wastes. As a consequence, new productswith added value can be generated1.This work aimed to evaluate the products and yields obtained from different agriculturalwastes using the fast pyrolysis technique. Rice husk (RH), oil palm residues (OPR),cacao residues (CR), and poultry litter (PL) were the biomass here studied. All materialswere pyrolyzed under vacuum conditions and with nitrogen flow to ensure the oxygenabsence and atmosphere inert condition. The pyrolytic reactions were carried out atdifferent temperatures (400 ? 700 °C) and reaction times (20 - 120 minutes). Threefractions were obtained from every pyrolytic reaction: biocarbon, bio-oil, and syn-gas.Particularly, biocarbons were exhaustively characterized by elemental analysis, XRD,ICP, SEM, and BET to know their composition and morphology in order to evaluate theirpossible applications. Currently, we are working with these carbonaceous materials tobe used as mesoporous casts and batteries electrodes2, to recover organic compounds from cheese whey3,4, and to obtain composites with biopolymers for the adsorption of toxic metals from aqueous solutions5. Depending on the features of the carbonaceous material (carbon content, porosity, ash content, among others) it is used for one purpose or another.