Experimental investigation of pyrolysis characteristics of the existensial biomass in Turkey

The basic problems of energy supply, dependence on foreign sources prompted Turkey that largely imports energy to examine different Technologies and form the energy policies in paralel with the above mentioned issues. In conjunction with these conditions, in 2009 Kyoto Protocol was signed by Turkey and the European Union energy-environment policies were taken into consideration as the main policy. The main target of this study is to create alternative energy sources to the fosil fuels. Within this scope, pyrolysis characteristics of biomass samples that are rife and already doomed in natural conditions of Turkey are determined by detecting thermogravimetric changes at oxygen free environment. In this study, totally 12 types of biomasses such as hazelnut shell, corn cob, cotton seed, olive cake, peach stone, wood pellet, pistachio shell, sawdust, sunflower seed husks, sunflower seed paste, tea waste and walnut shell are examined. Biomass samples are heated up to 900 °C from room temperature (̴25 °C) with heating rates of 5 °C/min (for both dynamic and isothermal conditions) and nitrogen flow of 40-50 ml/min at oxygen free environment. The mass losses of the biomass samples based on temperature variation are obtained by using thermogravimetric analyzer (TGA). The pyrolysis characteristics of the biomass samples are determined by taking into consideration of thermal decompositions and vaporization of the volatile matter contents of the biomasses. Corn cub and sunflower seed husks are accepted as the most reactive fuels having the minimum peak temperature (295 °C, 298 °C). In comparison to the remaining 10 biomass samples, peach stone and sawdust are found to have the maximum peak temperature (349 °C, 348 °C). As a result of all the experiments, the mass of the residues are varied approximately between 10%-40% (except for the corn cub with a residual mass of 62,11%).