Experimental Investigation of the Influence of Feedstock Moisture Content on the Yield and Quality of the Product From the Thermo-Catalytic Reforming Process

The use of auger reactors in thermo-catalytic reforming (TCR®) plants demand the feedstocks to be granulated or pelletised and dried. Drying improves the compressive strength and shelf life of the granules or pellets. This work investigates the optimal moisture content for feedstocks intended for the lab-scale TCR® plant. Four pelletised samples from woody biomass with moisture contents 0.23 wt.%, 1.09 wt.%, 10.65 wt.% and 30.79 wt.% are studied. The experimental settings are kept the same for all the samples. The results show that, generally, the dryer the feedstock, the bigger the bio-oil and bio-gas yields. However, excessive drying does not bring about commensurate increase in the bio-gas and bio-oil yields. More still, the moderately dry (10.56 wt. %) sample presents the least difficulty in material handling while having optimal yields. Meantime, it is observed from the proximate and ultimate analyses of the products that the moisture content of the feed does not have any significant influence on the properties of the products. Based on these results, the optimal moisture content recommended for feedstocks intended for the lab-scale TCR® plant is approximately 10 wt.%.