RESEARCH ARTICLE

Liquid discharge plasma for fast biomass liquefaction at mild conditions: The effects of homogeneous catalysts

  • Sen Wang 1 ,
  • Shiyun Liu 1 ,
  • Danhua Mei 1 ,
  • Rusen Zhou 3 ,
  • Congcong Jiang 2 ,
  • Xianhui Zhang 2 ,
  • Zhi Fang , 1 ,
  • Kostya (Ken) Ostrikov 3
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  • 1. College of Electrical Engineering and Control Science, Nanjing Tech University, Nanjing 211816, China
  • 2. Fujian Provincial Key Laboratory of Plasma and Magnetic Resonance, Institute of Electromagnetics and Acoustics, Department of Electronic Science, College of Electronic Science and Technology, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361005, China
  • 3. School of Chemistry, Physics and Mechanical Engineering, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Queensland 4000, Australia

Received date: 09 Jul 2019

Accepted date: 24 Aug 2019

Published date: 15 Oct 2020

Copyright

2020 Higher Education Press and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature

Abstract

Non-thermal plasma exhibits unique advantages in biomass conversion for the sustainable production of higher-value energy carriers. Different homogeneous catalysts are usually required for plasma-enabled biomass liquefaction to achieve time-and energy-efficient conversions. However, the effects of such catalysts on the plasma-assisted liquefaction process and of the plasma on those catalysts have not been thoroughly studied. In this study, an electrical discharge plasma is employed to promote the direct liquefaction of sawdust in a mixture of polyethylene glycol 200 and glycerol. Three commonly used chemicals, sulfuric acid, nitric acid and sodium p-toluene sulfate, were selected as catalysts. The effects of the type of catalyst and concentration on the liquefaction yield were examined; further, the roles of the catalysts in the plasma liquefaction process have been discussed. The results showed that the liquefaction yield attains a value of 90% within 5 min when 1% sulfuric acid was employed as the catalyst. Compared with the other catalysts, sulfuric acid presents the highest efficiency for the liquefaction of sawdust. It was observed that hydrogen ions from the catalyst were primarily responsible for the significant thermal effects on the liquefaction system and the generation of large quantities of active species; these effects directly contributed to a higher efficacy of the plasma-enabled liquefaction process.

Cite this article

Sen Wang , Shiyun Liu , Danhua Mei , Rusen Zhou , Congcong Jiang , Xianhui Zhang , Zhi Fang , Kostya (Ken) Ostrikov . Liquid discharge plasma for fast biomass liquefaction at mild conditions: The effects of homogeneous catalysts[J]. Frontiers of Chemical Science and Engineering, 2020 , 14(5) : 763 -771 . DOI: 10.1007/s11705-019-1896-y

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Foundation of Key Laboratory of Biomass Chemical Engineering of Ministry of Education, China (Zhejiang University, No. 2018BCE006). We are also grateful to the Australian Research Council for their partial support.
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