Liquid fuel from oil seeds by pyrolysis

Demand for energy and its resources, is increasing every day due to the rapid growth in population and urbanization. As the major conventional energy resources like coal, petroleum and natural gas are at the verge of getting extinct, biomass can be considered as one of the best environment friendly renewable energy options. Though there are many thermo-chemical conversion processes like pyrolysis, combustion, gasification, liquefaction, hydrogenation, Pyrolysis has gained special attention as it can convert biomass directly into solid, liquid and gaseous products by thermal decomposition of biomass in absence of oxygen. In this report, experiments on pyrolysis of sesame seed and groundnut seed was done and effect of temperature on pyrolysis of liquid product, char, volatiles and reaction time were studied. The liquid yield was highest at 500°C for sesame seed and groundnut seed. With increase in temperature, reaction time and weight of char decreased. Volatiles initially decreased and then increased with increase in temperature. The different FTIR spectra of sesame and groundnut oil show the presence of mostly alkane and alkenes. The results were found consistent when compared with the results of GC-MS. 1H NMR analysis of bio-oil proves that β- CH3, CH2 hydrogen protons are attached to an aromatic ring in higher proportions. Presence of pores shown by SEM-EDX analysis paves a path for using this char as an adsorbent