Staged Pyrolytic Conversion of Acid-Loaded Woody Biomass for Production of High-Strength Coke and Valorization of Volatiles

Lignocellulosic biomass is an attractive resource for metallurgical coke. The hot pelletization of powdered biomass followed by carbonization produces a high-strength biocoke. However, the fate of a major portion of biomass after carbonization is the production of low-value volatiles. Here, we enabled the valorization of woody biomass as valuable chemicals, such as anhydrosugars and phenols, and strong coke by loading mineral acid over wood and staged conversion consisting mainly of torrefaction, pelletization, and then carbonization. The loading of H2SO4 or H3PO4 at an amount equal to or slightly less than that of metals inherent in the wood, having catalysis for promoting the formation of valueless light oxygenates from carbohydrates, was effective for passivating those metals and drastically improving the anhydrosugar yield in torrefaction at 300–320 °C. The total yield of anhydrosugars from wood and the yield of levoglucosan, a dominant anhydrosugar, from cellulose in the wood reached 12.1 and 25.3 wt %, respectively. It was noteworthy that torrefaction altered the composition of components in wood and positively influenced the strength of coke prepared by pelletization and carbonization. In particular, torrefaction in the presence of H2SO4 led to a remarkable densification of pellets during carbonization. The resulting coke had a strength (tensile strength) of up to 24.2 MPa, which was much higher than that of coke directly pelletized and carbonized from wood (9.0 MPa). Moreover, the lignin-enriched torrefied wood selectively produced phenols and combustible gas with H2 as the major component in the carbonization. Under the most optimal conditions examined in this work, 45.7 wt % of the wood was converted into the desired products with the remainder being water and heavy condensable volatiles, while the yield of light oxygenates was greatly reduced.