Physical and Chemical Characterization of Various Indian Agriculture Residues for Biofuels Production

Abstract

Lignocellulosic material (LCM) has been considered as a potent feedstock for biofuel production either as gaseous, liquid, and/or solid fuel to meet the energy demands. Conversion of lignocellulosic materials to biofuels is possible mainly by two processes, i.e., thermochemical and biochemical. For overall efficiency of processes designed to convert the lignocellulosic materials into the desired biofuel, it is important to understand the characteristics of these lignocellulosic components. The present study aims for physicochemical characterization of common lignocellulosic agricultural residues available in India, i.e., rice straw, rice husk, cotton stalk, wheat straw, bagasse, corn stover, sorghum stalk, mustard stalk, corn cob, and jatropha pruning. Physical and chemical characterization of lignocellulosic samples is carried out by higher heating value, crystallinity index, thermal properties, CHNS/O analysis, FTIR, metal analysis, and compositional analysis. Among all of the biomass samples analyzed, corn cob has the highest content of cellulose and hemicellulose, i.e., 61.2% (w/w), making it the most potent feedstock for production of biofuels using biochemical process, whereas cotton stalk has relatively higher thermochemical potential due to its higher heating value (19.2 MJ/kg). Rice husk and rice straw have the highest ash content, i.e., 17.4 and 13.7% (w/w), respectively, indicating a significant amount of undesirable material.

Structural Analysis of Alkaline Pretreated Rice Straw for Ethanol Production

“…The carbon and oxygen atoms typically originated from the natural fiber. The relatively high content of silica was commonly found in RS, and the value of 9.15% was consistent with other reports [27,28]. After pretreatment, the EDX spectra showed higher percentage of carbon than oxygen, which may reflect the cellulosic component [29].…”

Isolation of lignin by organosolv process from different varieties of rice husk: Understanding their physical and chemical properties

“…Typically in lignocellulosic samples, C/O ratio ranges between 0.9 and 1.1 (Raj et al, 2015) and in this work also with RH samples C/O ratio in the similar range (0.7-0.8) was seen. It was interesting to examine that after the extraction of lignin from RH samples, the C/O ratio was decreased in pulp samples.…”

Effects of Lignocellulosic Bulking Agents Made from Agricultural Byproducts on Physical Properties and Drying Energy Consumption of Duplex Board

“…Agricultural residues or byproducts are generally produced from the cultivation of agricultural crops and are available at a lower cost than other biomass resources. These lignocellulosic agricultural byproducts have been used in various applications, depending on their composition and physical properties (Alslaibi et al 2013;Liu et al 2013;Rehrah et al 2014;Raj et al 2015). However, over 50% of the agricultural byproducts generated while harvesting crops in Korea are discarded because of the lack of specific technologies for industrial applications, according to statistics from the Rural Development Administration (Kook et al 2013).…”