Comprehensive characterization of cattle manure bio-oil for scale-up assessment comparing non-equivalent reactor designs

Microscale pyrolysis reactors are used to predict the properties of pyrolysis products and/or optimize operating conditions. However, a major challenge encountered with these systems concerns reactor scale-up, since the conception of an equivalent large-scale configuration involves a complex step of mathematical analysis of the process. Furthermore, the effect of scale for different reactor configurations, considering the ways that the reactor design can influence pyrolysis, are still unknown parameters in the process. Therefore, this work evaluated the influence of scale, for different pyrolysis reactor configurations, on the composition of the liquid product (bio-oil) obtained by thermoconversion of cattle manure, using comprehensive chemical characterization by GC/MS and UHRMS, followed by statistical analysis. The gravimetric yields of the liquid fractions produced at the micro (R1) and semi-pilot (R2) scales showed a difference of ~10%, while similarity indices of ~90% were found for the volatile constituents of the bio-oils, determined by GC/MS. The ~10% disparity for the GC-analyzable bio-oil fraction was mainly associated with higher production of methoxyphenols in the R2 process. The molecular compositions determined by UHRMS showed degrees of dissimilarity