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Pyrolysis of biomass in a semi-industrial scale

reactor: Study of the fuel-nitrogen oxidation during
combustion of volatiles
E. Mura*, O. Debono*, A. Villot, F. Paviet
Ecole des Mines de Nantes, Departement des Syste`mes Energetiques et Environnement (DSEE), France

article info

abstract

Article history:

In this work, an experimental study of the NOx-fuel formation, carried out on a semi-

Received 25 January 2013

industrial scale reactor during combustion of volatiles of the pyrolysis, is performed.

Received in revised form

Two different biomasses with different nitrogen contents such as a mixture of organic

1 September 2013

sludge and wood were tested. Results show that the temperature of pyrolysis does not

Accepted 3 September 2013

obviously affect the production of NOx-fuel because of the most active precursors (NH3 and

Available online 24 September 2013

HCN) are already released at low temperatures (400
C). In the case of sludge mixture, the
combustion conditions play the discriminating role in the production of NOx-fuel: the

Keywords:

higher the excess air ratio the larger the production of nitrogen oxides from N-fuel.
2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Biomass
Pyrolysis
Volatile yields
Combustion
NOx-fuel formation

1.

Introduction

Biomass residues such as organic waste represent an important source of energy since biogas is usually produced from
matters such as sewage sludge, industrial and municipal solid
waste [1]. Nowadays, several sustainable technologies are
available with the aims of the energy conversion of such
organic residues. The processes providing for thermal treatments, as combustion, gasification and pyrolysis, are the most
widely applied on an industrial scale. Pyrolysis, which is
defined by Manara & Zabaniotou as the process of thermal
decomposition of fuels chemical molecules in an inert atmosphere [2], has several advantages compared to the other
technologies. In fact, it is easier to set up with respect to a
gasification process and it presents less environmental

drawbacks compared to direct combustion (incineration

mainly), moreover it allows to diversify the production of fuels
in three different phases such as char, oil (tar) and gas [3,4].
The fraction of the three products so obtained depends on the
temperature of the process and on the residence time of the
biomass. A low temperature process (w300
C) for long residence time (from several hours to more than one day) yields a
high mass fraction of char (>30%); increasing the temperature
to moderate values (w500
C) and reducing the residence time
(up to a few seconds) leads to a high content of oils; at high
temperature (>700
C) the mass fraction of gases is favored
(>30%) [3].
Several authors have already studied the composition of
the products resulting from pyrolysis of different types of
biomass. Char is generally characterized in terms of the

* Corresponding authors. La Chantrerie 4, rue Alfred Kastler, B.P. 20722, F-44307 NANTES Cedex 3, France. Tel.: 33 (0) 251 858 563.
E-mail addresses: Ernesto.mura@mines-nantes.fr (E. Mura), Olivier.debono@mines-nantes.fr (O. Debono).
0961-9534/$ e see front matter 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.biombioe.2013.09.001

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b i o m a s s a n d b i o e n e r g y 5 9 ( 2 0 1 3 ) 1 8 7 e1 9 4

percentage of volatile matter, fixed carbon and ash residues

[4e6]. Gases consist of a mixture containing mainly H2, CO,
CO2, CH4 and other light hydrocarbons such as C2H2, C2H4, C2H6
and C3H8 [2,6,7]. Tar is considered as the most difficult yield to
characterize since its composition consists of a set of organic
compounds too large to be defined in detail [2]. Sanchez et al.
classified the main compounds of the liquid phase issued
from pyrolysis of the sewage sludge in the following clusters:
n-alkanes and 1-alkenes, aromatic hydrocarbons, aliphatic
and aromatics nitriles, carboxylic acids with long aliphatic
chains, long chains aliphatic amides and steroids [8]. These
solid, oily and gaseous products, due to their high heating
value, can be directly burned to generate heat [2,4,6].
The study of the energy conversion by direct combustion of
these products is crucial in a sustainable vision of the
carbonization processes of biomasses for both industrial and
small-scale plants. But, the application of these technologies
is subjected to increasingly strict environmental requirements that reduce its field of utilization. For this reason,
the study of the mechanisms of the formation of pollutants is
critical in the development of these technologies. In spite of
the large available literature, there is a lack of information
about the behavior of these products (especially volatiles)
during combustion and the consequent emissions of certain
pollutants such as NOx, SOx and heavy metals. It is generally
accepted that the production of SO2 and heavy metals is directly
related to the amount of S and heavy metals in the fuel.
Otherwise, the NOx formation seems to be more related to the
operating conditions and/or to the features of the fuel [9].
As it is well known, the formation of NOx in a flame occurs
mainly according to 4 different processes: 1) The formation of
thermal NOx is regulated by the extended Zeldovich mechanism [10], where the air involved during combustion is the
source of nitrogen and the formation rate is significant at
elevated temperatures (>1500
C) due to the high dissociation
energy of N2 [11]; 2) At lower temperatures and in areas where
the presence of fuel is important, N2 reacts with hydrocarbon
radicals produced by thermal degradation of the fuel (CHi).
These reactions result in the formation of amine and cyanide
compounds which react to generate the prompt NOx [12]. 3) In
high pressure and strong presence of oxygen conditions, the
formation of NOx can also occur by N2O as intermediate [13]. 4)
NOx are formed by conversion of the nitrogen issued from the
fuel (N-fuel) [14]. The oxidation of the N-fuel is of crucial relevance in the direct combustion of solid material such as
biomass. In fact, in the first phase of thermal degradation of
the matter (primary pyrolysis), the N-fuel is shared out in a Nchar fraction, contained in the solid residue, and in a N-species
fraction, contained in lighter phases as gases and oils. The
distribution of these fractions depends generally on both, the
operating conditions and the nature of the bonds involving
the nitrogen in the original structure of the fuel. In the secondary pyrolysis phase of thermal degradation of tar and gas
fractions, the nitrogen can be included in molecules such as
NH3, HCN, HNCO. The concentration of these compounds,
called primary intermediates, is still object of study: it is
commonly assumed that biomass features, pyrolysis parameters and experimental methods may affect the formation of
one of these compounds to the detriment of the others
[15e17]. The primary intermediates react with O, OH, H to give

the principal intermediates (NCO, NH) that in a combustion

process lead to the formation of NOx, N2 and N2O [9,18].
In this work, an experimental study of the NOx, released
from the combustion of volatiles of the pyrolysis, is performed. The term volatiles refers to the whole set of noncondensable gases and condensable matters (including
water) produced by the process of pyrolysis thus excluding
only the solid residue (char). The experiments are carried out
for several operating pyrolysis conditions with the aim of
emphasize the effect of the fuel-N. Two different biomasses
have been tested with high nitrogen (sludge mixture) and
low nitrogen (wood) contents in a semi-industrial pilot scale
pyrolysis screw reactor. The objective of this work is to
contribute to the understanding of the phenomena of fuel-NOx
formation and to determine the proper operating condition for
a limited production of pollutants in the energetic conversion
of biomass.

2.

Material and methods

The experimental apparatus consists of a screw pyrolysis

reactor, provided with a series of electrical heating elements,
inside of which the sample undergoes the heat flow in an inert
atmosphere. The residual solid yield (char) is conveyed to be
stored whereas the volatile fraction (tar and gas) is injected in
a post-combustion chamber.
A few similar configurations have been already proposed in
the literature with the objective to study the products of the
thermal process, especially for two-staged gasifier reactors fed
in batch [6,19]. Otherwise, this reactor has been designed to
provide information concerning the whole energy process:
from the pyrolysis operating condition until the exhaust after
combustion of the volatiles. A description of the fundamental
features of the experimental system is given below.

2.1.

Samples

Experiments were carried out by using biomass consisting of

sludge mixture and wood supplied in batch. The Wood is a
common softwood (from gymnosperm trees) used in the
construction of pallets for loading and transportation of food
that, after its workecycle life, has been chipped in particles
of an average size of 3 cm in diameter and stored indoors
(the species and the chain of custody of the wood are not
known in detail). The advantage of studying these two matters
lies in their very similar ultimate analysis composition in
terms of carbon and hydrogen amounts and in a large difference regarding their content of nitrogen. The sludge,
composed by sewage sludge and food waste in a ratio of one to
one, is a representative sample of the waste generated on
cruise ships. To avoid any influence on the process of pyrolysis, the size of the particles was optimized to an average
equivalent diameter of 4 mm for the wood and even much
smaller for the sludge that looks like a homogeneous powder
[4e6]. The moisture content is an important feature of the
biomass because it affects directly the density and the heating
value. The sludge has been previously dried but it still presents a relatively high level of humidity. Table 1 summarizes
the main characteristics of the matter: moisture has been

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800

Table 1 e Characteristics of the matter in mass fraction.

The features of the Sludge are averaged values between
sewage sludge and food waste.

700

Ultimate analysis (dry basis)

in mass fraction
Moisture

Ashes

[%]
[%]

10.1
17.8

0.8
6.1

50
45

5.9
5.7

43
27

0
0.4

0.4
16

[%]
[%]

9.4
13.6

5.4
5.7

49
47

6.2
5.9

25
26

0.4
0.4

14
15

500
T [C]

Wood
Sewage
sludge
Food waste
Average
sludge

600

400

300
200
100
0

measured using an iodine solution by a Karl Fisher apparatus;

hashes were evaluated in terms of residual mass after combustion of the matter at 550
C; C, H, N, and S fraction has
been determined by Thermo Finnigan AE1112 Series Flash
elemental analyzer. Oxygen was obtained by mass difference
from the dried raw matter.

2.2.

0,2

0,4

0,6

0,8

X/l
external 700C

internal

external 600C

internal

external 500C

internal

external 400C

internal

Fig. 2 e Internal and externals profiles of the temperature

of the reactor during the experimental tests.

Pyrolysis screw reactor

The pyrolysis reactor is composed of a horizontal Archimedes

screw surrounded by a stainless tube of 0.167 m in diameter
and 2 m long, (Fig. 1). The feed is provided by a vertical hopper
and the residual char is stored in a hermetic box. The heat is
supplied by a heating power of 20 kW equally sheared into
four elements. The temperatures of the process are checked
by two set of K type thermocouples: 1) eight thermocouples
are placed upon the surface along the reactor to provide information concerning the external profile of temperature; 2)
four thermocouples are placed on the external surface of the
screw axis and 2 cm immersed in the matter to give the inner
temperature profile. Four external temperature profiles are
tested: 400
C, 500
C, 600
C and 700
C. Fig. 2 shows the distributions of the temperature in the reactor before the

biomass flow. It is evident that there is not any relevant difference between the two temperatures profiles in except of
the outlying areas.
The mass flow rate is related to the rotational frequency of
the screw which defines the residence time of biomass. In
order to obtain comparable results in terms of the amount of
volatiles, the tests were made with different mass flow rates
as a function of the operating conditions such as temperature,
residence time and density. The residence time was previously experimentally evaluated by particle tracking method
for every selected rotational frequencies of the screw. Fig. 3
shows the relationship between these parameters and the
averaged biomass flow rate, experimentally obtained by
measuring the level of the hopper with a radar system

Fig. 1 e Experimental pyrolysis reactor (a); Simplified scheme of the combustion chamber (b).

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instrument is coupled with a paramagnetic detector for the

analysis of the oxygen. The calibration for quantitative analysis of the FTIR spectrometer has been done by the manufacturer using gaseous mixtures at known concentration.
Various tests were made under steady conditions with a
micro-chromatography gas to verify the accuracy of the FTIR
for the common analyzed gases.

40
400C

Mass rate [kg/h]

35

500C

30

600C

25

20

700C

15

3.

10
5
0
0,25

0,4

0,55

0,7

0,85

1,15

Time of residence [h]

Sludge

Wood

Fig. 3 e Biomass rate Vs time of residence. The input

temperature is also shown.

Results

All tests were carried out according to the same experimental

protocol. When the input temperature profile is achieved, the
biomass is put in the hopper and a flow of nitrogen gas is
injected inside the reactor in order to make it inert. At this
point, the axis of the screw starts to rotate at a frequency that
is kept constant during the test. The process is monitored in
real-time by analysis of the exhaust concentration. The mass
of each measured species (ms) is evaluated by the given
expression
Ztf
ms

Ms
t0

(Opticwave 6300). It is evident that the lower the temperature

the higher the flow rate. In addition the sludge density is
higher than wood and the slope of the two trend curves is
closely related to the density of the matter: increasing the
density, at the same time of residence, larger mass flow rates
were obtained.

2.3.

Post-combustion and gas analysis

During the experimental tests, the volatile products of pyrolysis are conveyed through a 40 cm long pipeline within a postcombustion apparatus designed to produce a pre-mixed turbulent flame. In the post-combustion chamber the flame,
previously ignited by a premixed natural-gas pilot flame,
burns with a constant air flow rate (34.5 m3 h1) coming from
the inlet air section and checked by a flow meter. In this
configuration the natural-gas supply can be turned off and
pyrolysis yields, pre-mixed with the air coming from the inlet
section 18 cm before the combustion chamber, can burn. The
pipeline is kept at a stable temperature of 400
C. The aim is to
reduce fluctuations in combustion kinetics and to limit the
phenomena of tar condensation, given by the mixture of two
fluids at different temperatures [20]. The post combustion
chamber has been designed in order to ensure a residence
time of the gases higher than 3 s. The temperature of the post
combustion chamber was monitored by a fixed thermocouple
placed as shown in Fig. 1b. This temperature, that does not
consider the radiant phenomenon due to the flame, never
exceeded 950
C.
The gases produced during combustion are analyzed by a
Fourier Transform Infrared spectrometer (FTIR SESAM 4 produced by AVL). The sampling line is kept at a constant temperature (180
C) and provided with a total filter to avoid the
passage of particles in the measuring section. The measurement frequency is 1s and the resolution is 0.5 cm1. The FTIR

CS Q_ N2
dt
CN2 Vm

(1)

where the interval of integration [t0, tf] corresponds to the total

elapsing time between start and end of the sampling operated
by the FTIR analyzer, CS represents the molar fraction of any
detected gas and Ms is its characteristic molar mass, Q_ N2 is the
averaged nitrogen flow rate of the air provided for combustion
and CN2 is its molar concentration, Vm is the molar volume [21].
The total mass balance is checked by the ratio between the
output and input mass involved in the process according to
the equation (2). This value is always higher than 0.985.


mchar mexhaust out


mbiomass mair mnat gas in

(2)

In this way, the total mass balance can be affected by two

factors of uncertainty: the variation of Q_ N2 and the moisture of
biomass: 1)The low standard deviation of Q_ N2 (s 650 dm3 h1,
measured under standard conditions of T 273.15 K and
P 101,325 Pa), evaluated for every test under a high number
of recorded data (>400), indicates that values tend to be very
close to the mean and the associated error is lower than 1.9%;
2) The moisture content (Table 1) can be involved in the
combustion process or condensed in the cooler parts of the
reactor (hopper). In these circumstances it is impossible to
determine its influence. In the worst case, this parameter
provides an uncertainty of about 1.7%. The influence given by
these two effects is <5%. Other mass values such as the input
biomass and the output char do not offer any deserved uncertainties. FTIR-analyzer uncertainties are also negligible.

3.1.

Experimental tests

Fig. 4 shows as an example, the main phases of the tests

performed with sludge matter at 700
C. The experiments are
divided into three consecutive stages: 1) The natural gas pilot
flame is burning and not any product of pyrolysis is released
because of the low temperature range: the biomass undergoes

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1600
1400

NOx [mol/mol]

1200
1000
800
600
400
200
0
1,1

3.2.
Influence of process parameters: excess air ratio and
temperature of pyrolysis
The results obtained with both biomasses wood and sludge
mixture were compared. In Fig. 5, NOx are presented as function of the air excess calculated as the ratio between the oxygen mass rate supplied by the fresh air integrated in the
sampling interval mo2 in and the oxygen consumed during
combustion, according to the equation
Excess air ratio

mo2 in
mo2 in  mo2 out

(3)

In this equation mo2 out is the oxygen in mass in exhausts

evaluated by equation (1). In experiments involving wood, the
production of NOx is roughly independent of the air supplied.

1,5

1,7

1,9

2,1

2,3

Excess air ratio

Fig. 4 e Combustion of volatiles of pyrolized sludges at

700
C. Analysis of the exhaust in mol fraction Vs time [h].

a dehydration process and the recorded gases (CO2, H2O, NOx,

etc.) are generated by the combustion of the natural gas pilot
flame. 2) The products of pyrolysis begin to be burned leading
to a constant increase of the exhausts resulting in a reduction
of the O2 (2e3%). 3) Natural gas supply is stopped and only
pyrolysis yields are burned in the flame. At this moment the
NOx production sharp increases because of the large amount
of available oxygen, afterwards the exhaust gradually increases until a stationary phase. At the end of the test, a
reduction in the volatiles leads to the extinction of the flame
and the natural gas pilot flame is automatically sparked on.
Our attention is focused on the production of NOx during the
third stage.
The measured NOx consist mainly of NO, otherwise NO2
offers a limited contribution that never exceeds the 2% for the
sludge and stays at an average of 8% in the case of wood.
The formation of NO is primarily due to the NO-fuel
mechanisms. As a matter of the fact, the combustion of the
pyrolysis yields is carried out at atmospheric pressure and
with a low ratio fuel/air mixing. Under these conditions,
contributions such as -thermal, -prompt and -N2O mechanisms
on NO formation is limited [14].

1,3

700C

600C

500C

700C

600C

500C

Organic Sludge
400C

Wood

Fig. 5 e Production of NOx in mol fraction in function of the

excess air ratio, for different temperature process, during
combustion of volatiles from wood and sludge.

We can infer that the N-fuel, made available during combustion, achieved a threshold to respect of the oxidation
process. In fact, increasing the oxygen feeding not any variation occurs. Moreover, the temperature of the pyrolysis process does not seems to reveal any discriminating role
excepted for pyrolysis performed at 400
C in which has been
observed a slight reduction of NOx, probably due to the low
efficiency of pyrolysis.
Instead, the amount of NOx, produced in processes
involving organic sludge, rises in increasing the available oxygen in the flame because of the large amount of nitrogen
present in the raw matter. The oxidization threshold observed
for the wood is not present in this case. Besides, the superposition of data reveals that the temperature of pyrolysis has
not obvious effect in NOx production during combustion. It
means that the nitrogen involved in the oxidation process is
already available at low temperatures. For the organic sludge
mixture data, obtained during the test at 400
C, did not provide useful results due to the low efficiency of the process.

3.3.

Solid fraction

In the Fig. 6 the yields of pyrolysis are shown in terms of ratio

between the mass of char and raw biomass (hchar): the higher
the temperature, the lower the char fraction. The test of the
sewage sludge at 400
C diverges from others results inasmuch as the matter did not have the time to undergo a complete pyrolysis process, i.e. the residence time was too small.
The temperature of the process plays also an important
role in the distribution of the fractions of the elementary
compounds in the solid residues. In Table 2 are listed the

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Nchar and hchar are respectively the mass fraction of nitrogen in

the solid yield and the char efficiency of pyrolysis in terms of
char yield.
Fig. 7 shows the nitrogen distribution in solid and volatile
product from pyrolysis as a function of the temperature with
ashes included. Char issue from wood present a nitrogen
fraction varying from 38% at 400
C to 10% at 700
C. The same
trend is also observed in the case of the organic sludge, where
the nitrogen fraction decreases by half for temperature rising
from 500 to 700
C.
We can assert that the higher the pyrolysis temperature
the larger the amount of nitrogen, released from the biomass
(N-fuel) as volatile fraction, involved in the combustion
process.

4.

Fig. 6 e Solid yields in terms of mass fraction (hchar) Vs

temperature of pyrolysis.

results of the elementary analysis of the chars obtained from

experimental tests where data correspond to an average value
of 6 different samples of the same type of char.
The increase of the temperatures of pyrolysis leads to a
depletion of heteroatoms in the char, in fact the rates of N, H,
O and S are progressively reduced. In the case of wood, the
fraction of C has a significant tendency to increase and its
percentage changes from 71% at 400
C to 90% at 700
C. This
enrichment of C, which is generally followed by an aromatization of the structure of the char [22], does not occur in the
case of sludge. As a matter of the fact, in the case of sewage
sludge the fraction of C remains nearly constant because of
the large amount of ashes (see Table 1).
The total amount of nitrogen released in the volatile phase
NTvolatiles after the pyrolysis process is obtained, in terms of
weight fraction, by the difference between the overall amount
contained in the raw biomass mass fraction NTbiomass and the
residual nitrogen mass fraction present in the char NTchar :
NTvolatiles 1  NTchar 1 

Nchar $hchar
NTbiomass

Discussion

Results described above highlight that the temperature of

pyrolysis does not have a significant influence on the NOx
production during combustion. Otherwise, features of raw
biomass and chars reveal that the amount of N-fuel, released
in the volatiles during pyrolysis, is affected by the
temperature.
Fig. 8 shows the amount of N-fuel of the volatile phase
oxidized to form NOx during combustion.
Only a fraction of the available N-fuel is oxidized during
combustion. The remaining nitrogen (between 87 and 93%) is
converted, by means of processes involving mainly molecules
such as NH3 and HCN, in other N-compounds among which the
most likely is N2. The NH3 and HCN compounds, which are
considered as the most active precursors in NOx-fuel

(4)

Table 2 e Mass fraction of N, C, H, O and S in the solid

yields from pyrolysis at different temperatures (T) and
residence time (tres.).
T
[
C]

Wood

Sludge

Mass fraction

Mass fraction

tres N C H
[h]
400
500
600
700

0.28
0.38
0.56
0.7

0.8
0.6
0.6
0.4

71
81
88
90

O S Ashes tres N C H
[h]

4.2 20.6 0
3.4 14.1 0
2.7 7.1 0
2.1 5 0

3
1
1
2

S Ashes

0.56 5.1 47 3.2 11 0.7

0.7 4.1 41 1.4 8.1 0.6
0.92 3.2 48 1.2 8 0

33
45
39

Fig. 7 e Nitrogen distribution in solid yields and volatiles in

function of the temperature of pyrolysis for wood and
sludge.

b i o m a s s a n d b i o e n e r g y 5 9 ( 2 0 1 3 ) 1 8 7 e1 9 4

Fig. 8 e N-fuel in the volatile phase transformed in NOx.

formation, are released at low temperatures [23]. Cao et al. [24]

showed that, in the case of sewage sludge the production of
HCN is negligible, but at 400
C, the 25.4% of the overall nitrogen is released as NH3 and at 700
C up to 35%. This phenomenon is associated with the important presence of
proteins which at low temperatures (400
C) begin to decompose and to release amino structures [25,26]. In Fig. 9, a
schematization proposed by Miller and Bowman [27] (simplified here), highlights how the reduction process of NH3 converges towards the production of NO and N2.
The final loop calls to the selective non-catalytic reduction
processes (SNCR) in which NO is actively involved in its own
reduction to form N2 (which is very stable). This explains why
the percentage of NOx is always low if compared to the N-fuel
available to oxidation. Furthermore, this selective process
works at temperatures between 900
C and 1050
C [28].
Beyond these limits of temperature, i.e. by diluting the flame
by increasing the excess air ratio, the process greatly reduces
its effectiveness [29]. Moreover, the larger amount of oxygen
available to oxidation leads to an increase in the production of
NOx. This double effect could justify the behavior of sewage
sludge in which the amount of N-fuel available during combustion is very large. Otherwise, in the case of wood, the
amount of nitrogen made available during combustion, is
probably too low to observe the variations as a function of the
excess air ratio.

5.

Conclusion

An experimental study of the pyrolysis of biomass from

waste, such as wood and a mix of organic solid waste and
O

NO
O2 ,OH

NH3

OH,H,O

NH2

OH,H

NH

OH,H

NO

N2

NO

Fig. 9 e Formation of N2 and NO by NH3 as intermediate [27].

193

sewage sludge originated from cruise ships, has been carried

out in a semi-industrial screw reactor. The experimental
system, optimized for the direct production of heat, uses the
volatiles as fuel to feed a post-combustion flame. This method
allows us to easily approach an industrial scale.
The study leads to the analysis of NOx-fuel production
during combustion of the volatile fraction as a function of the
temperature of pyrolysis.
The results show that the temperature of pyrolysis does
not affect the production of NOx. The more active precursors
in the production of NOx-fuel are already issued in very large
quantities at low temperatures (400
C).
Only a small part of the N-fuel released in the volatile
fraction is oxidized. This is probably related to the processes
of selective reduction of NO greatly influenced by the presence
of NH3 and by temperature.
In the case of sewage sludge, the combustion conditions
play a very important role in the production of NOx-fuel. The
higher the excess air ratio the larger the production of nitrogen oxides. This could be due to both the increasing amount of
oxidant agent and the inhibitory effect of the selective
reduction process.
Obviously, the amount of nitrogen present in the raw
biomass is a discriminating factor on the production of NOxfuel. For this reason, two very different biomasses were
selected such as the sludge mixture, very rich in N and
therefore sensitive to the operating parameters, and wood,
poor in N and not very sensitive to the operating parameters.
In a future perspective, the process of formation of NOx-fuel
deserves to be further considered. In this sense, this work will
be supplemented by a study of the kinetics involving the N-fuel
during pyrolysis and combustion. The aim is to conceive an
adequate mathematical prediction model.

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