Morphology, Chemical, and Porosity Study of Soot Obtained from Three Biomass Fuels in a Retort Heating System

– Biomass resources have received considerable attention for their diversified purposes in the areas of energy production and production of other valuable chemicals. Soot is produced as an unwanted product of biomass thermal degradation. Its nature and characteristics have been found to be biomass composition related for carbon related applications. In this study, the structural and chemical properties of soot samples from three (3) different biomass fuels from a low-temperature retort heating reactor were investigated. The samples were characterized using Scanning Electron Microscopy with Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy (SEM-EDS), Fourier Transform Infra-Red Spectroscopy (FTIR) and Branueur-Emmet-Teller (BET) method. Different structural patterns were observed for the soot samples (I1, I2, and I3) which were attributed to different biomass sources from which the samples were produced. Similar carbon contents (>70%) were measured for the samples as was found from the EDS analysis. Also, it can be inferred that O/C ratios of the three samples were < 0.6 making the samples sources of stable carbon. The FTIR analysis indicated that soot samples were rich in functional groups present in oxygenated hydrocarbons. The three samples had considerably high specific surface areas and porosities with pore sizes ranging from mesoporous (I1 and I2) to microporous (I3) as revealed by the BET results. These carbon-rich materials can be used as precursors to produce activated carbon and other carbon related materials.(Graphical Abstract)