Influence of Pre-treated pine woodchips on thermal properties

The study reports on thermal properties of treated in reference to untreated pine woodchips using steam explosion pretreatment method. Experiments were performed using pine woodchips ground to pass through 1mm sieve mesh. The samples were subjected to a pressure of 5 MPa, temperature 264 °C at a residence time of 10 min in a vessel necessary to dissolve cellulose in water. Thermal properties were limited for deploying proximate, ultimate and thermo gravimetric analysis. For determination of ultimate analysis, the method by Parikh et al., 2007 and Mohodet al., 2012 were used whilst in thermo gravimetric analysis, the method used by Ndalilaetal., 2012 was evoked. In this way a comparison between values for treated depicted improved properties at a deviation of absolute value of not more than 30 % except for ash which improved by 70 % deviation. In thermo gravimetric analysis, the thermal grams accruing was distributed into drying, devolatilization and residue formation processes. In the drying process the amount of moisture loss per unit temperature was high in treated at a maximum of 0.39 %/°C than in untreated sample at a maximum of 0.18 %/°Cat a temperature around 110 °C. In the devolatilization process, the volatilization per unit temperature was also high to treated at a maximum of 0.34 %/°C than untreated sample at a maximum of 0.32 %/°C at a temperature between 110 °C to 490 °C, however, the deviation decreased as the temperature approached 490 °C. Residue formation process was at a constant weight loss of 1.12 %wt. for untreated and 0.36 %wt. for treated sample in the region above 490 °C. The results showed an improvement of thermal properties of treated against untreated one which signifies treated sample was better for fuel than untreated.