[Digestion] composition of pyrolysis gas

[Anand Karve]

I would like to know the composition of pyrolysis gas. This has nothing to
do with anaerobic digestion but the need for this information arose because
of the fact that lignocellulosic material, which represents the largest bulk
of biologically produced organic material, cannot generate biogas through
A.D. Combustible gas, and of course a lot of tar were produced when I
heated dry agricultural waste under anaerobic conditions, but when
I consulted konwledgiable persons, and asked them about the composition of
this gas, all of them, without exception, informed me that this gas
contained about 55% nitrogen, about 40% carbon monoxide and small quantities
of hydrogen and methane. This is obviously the composition of producer gas,
which is produced when a substance is gassified by burning it. As the
process of burning requires air, and since the oxygen is used up in the
process of burning, one gets the high nitrogen content in the producer
gas. In my experiment, I just heated the material in a closed vessel, The
starting material itself has no protein, and no outside air is allowed to
get into the vessel. So there can be no nitrogen in the gas (or very little
of it).
Yours
A.D.Karve

-- 
***
Dr. A.D. Karve
President, Appropriate Rural Technology Institute (ARTI)

*Please change my email address in your records to: adkarve at gmail.com *
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