Biofuel treatment with pyrolysis of processed leather waste

Nowadays the interest in alternative energy sources has been increasing because of energy problems as a part of life, environmental pollution caused by fossil fuels and the reduction of fossil-originated reserves in contrast with increased energy needs. One of the most important alternative sources is biomass. To obtain energy from biomass, pyrolysis is one of the conversion process. In this study, the pyrolysis of chrome tanned leather shaves, which is the waste of raw leather processing production process, was carried out. Just before the pyrolysis of biomass source, various preliminary analysis were applied. Then in the pyrolysis experiment, pyrolysis temperature, flow rate, heating time, retention time, catalyst (CaO) ratio and particle size were investigated to determine the efficiency of liquid product obtained as a result of fast pyrolysis of processed leather waste in a fixed bed reactor. As a result of experiments, the highest liquid product (bio-oil) were obtained with % 49 yield at 20 min retention time, 500 0C pyrolysis temperature, 50 0C/ min heating speed, 0,5 L/ min gas flow rate and 1/1 biomass-catalyst. To investigate the components of liquid product, FT-IR and GS-MS analysis were studied. Also, to investigate the possibility of using the liquid product as fuel, its calorific value were measured. As a result of this study, it is determined that the liquid product obtained from the waste of processed leather can be used both as fuel and as raw material to obtain chemical substances.