Gasification of Char Derived from Catalytic Hydrothermal Liquefaction of Pine Sawdust under a CO₂ Atmosphere

The integration between K₂CO₃ catalytic hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) and gasification is explored to improve the gasification process. In this study, the CO₂ gasification characteristics and the activation energies of the chars derived from four kinds of HTL products, black liquor (BL), and virgin pine sawdust (PS) are investigated non-isothermally using a thermogravimetric analyzer. The complete conversion of BL char and HTL product chars was achieved at lower temperatures (1150 K) than that of PS char (1300 K). BL char showed the highest derivative thermogravimetric (DTG) peak, an indicator of high reactivity, followed by HTL product chars and PS char. HTL liquid product chars exhibited the lowest DTG peak temperature (1023–1058 K), which is advantageous for the low-temperature gasification. The activation energies were calculated isoconversionally using the Kissinger–Akahira–Sunose (KAS), Flynn–Wall–Ozawa (FWO), and Starink approximations. On the basis of the KAS method, the range of the activation energy for the HTL aqueous product char sample was 127–259 kJ/mol, which was wider than that for BL char (171–190 kJ/mol). The HTL process can improve the gasification feedstock reactivity, and the use of the HTL liquid product allows for the gasification at a low temperature