Investigations on chemical compositions and fuel characteristics of biomass tar

Tyvo kinds of biomass tars were obtained during the carbonization processes of corn straws (SL) and wood ships (FS) in the temperature range of 500-600°C and 600-700°C, respectively, and their physicochemical properties and chemical compositions were mainly investigated. The results showed that both of tars exhibited high volatile contents (55.45% and 76.44%), high carbon contents (48.42% and 52.36%, low sulfur contents (1.30% and 0.06%) and nitrogen contents (0.33% and 0.02%), and their heating value were both above 20.0MJ/Kg, which were favorable for being used as liquid fuel. Moreover, both of the tars were abundant in phenols, the content of phenols was 44.08% in SL and was up to 80.01% in FS. The main PAHs detected from SL were di-to tricyclic PAHs, including naphthalene and its derivatives, anthracene and pyrene, and the PAHs detected from FS were mainly included alkyl naphthalene. In addition, there were a large amount of alkanes (17.15%) in SL and a small amount of alkenes in two kinds of tars. These results obtained in this study could provide essential and useful information for the successful application of biomass tar, which also have an important influence on the efficiency of biomass energy.