Investigation of the relevance between biomass pyrolysis polygeneration and washing pretreatment under different severities: Water, dilute acid solution and aqueous phase bio-oil

Washing pretreatments of rice straw were performed using three different solutions, namely water, dilute hydrochloric acid solution (HCl solution, pH = 2.9), and aqueous phase bio-oil (APBO, pH = 2.9). The raw and pretreated samples were pyrolyzed at 550 °C in a fixed bed reactor. Results showed that among the three pretreatments, washing with APBO had the highest removal efficiency of alkali metal and alkaline earth metals (AAEMs). Among the pyrolysis products, bio-oil from APBO washed sample had the highest mass, energy, and carbon yields, lowest water content of 36.9%, highest HHV of 17.2 MJ/kg, and highest relative content of anhydrosugars of 31.2%. Its biochar had the lowest ash content of 27.3% and highest specific surface area of 98.6 m2/g, and its non-condensable gases had the highest HHV of 11.9 MJ/m3. Therefore, APBO washing was effective in improving the quality of biomass and its subsequent pyrolysis products.