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Pelletized Composite Wood Fiber Mixed with Plastic as Advanced Solid Biofuels: Thermo-Chemical Analysis

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Abstract

Biomass pellets, as renewable multifunctional resources, cannot only be exploited for heating and power generation but also for greenhouse carbon dioxide enrichment. Composite pellets of plastics and wood fibers are one of the industrialized alternative biomass with improved multiphysical properties. In this study, thermal and chemical analysis along with the scanning electron microscope imaging were implemented. The bio-based fibers were mixed with several volume fractions of plastic in the form of pelletized advanced solid fuel. The pristine fiber pellet containing no plastic was tested as a baseline for the thermo-chemical properties of composite wood pellets. Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) were used for the thermal analysis of pelletized samples. The TGA results were used to explore the thermal reactivity of fibers and plastics under high temperature conditions. The DSC results showed that the glass transition of the composite pellets, taking place under endothermic reactions, was activated by increasing the plastic content of composite pellets. Thermal conductivity of composite pellets was measured using the Hot-Disk transient plane source (TPS) technique. The TPS results showed that a composite pellet with a higher volume-fraction of plastics possessed a lower thermal conductivity. This is due to the lower thermal conductivity of shredded plastics than the blended fibers in the matrix of the pellets. The presence of plastic changed the thermal behavior of fiber by enhancing the energy content of composite pellets while altering the chemical composition of gas emission during the thermo-chemical conversion of biomass. Finally, the results of pelletized fiber-plastic composites were compared with undensified fibers and plastics to identify the accessible boundaries for the thermo-chemical properties of fiber-plastic solid fuels. The results of this study helped to improve the efficiency of the thermo-chemical conversion of the composite pellets through understanding the thermo-chemical behavior of the biomass within the reactor.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank BioFuelNet Canada for the financial support throughout the Project No. 29. We also gratefully acknowledge the technical support by Thermtest thermophysical instruments in New Brunswick for conducting thermal conductivity tests.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Bioresource Engineering, McGill University, Macdonald Campus, Macdonald-Stewart Building, 21,111 Lakeshore Road, Ste. Anne de Bellevue, QC, H9X 3V9, Canada

    E. Madadian, A. H. Akbarzadeh & M. Lefsrud

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  1. E. Madadian
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  2. A. H. Akbarzadeh
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  3. M. Lefsrud
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Correspondence to A. H. Akbarzadeh.

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Madadian, E., Akbarzadeh, A.H. & Lefsrud, M. Pelletized Composite Wood Fiber Mixed with Plastic as Advanced Solid Biofuels: Thermo-Chemical Analysis. Waste Biomass Valor 9, 1629–1643 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12649-017-9921-1

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