Abstract
Pyrolysis has been increasingly perceived as a promising technology to produce biofuel precursors (bio‐oil) from agricultural residuals; however, there is a significant quality gap between a bio‐oil and the fuels used for transportation. In this study, we autohydrolyzed pretreated sugarcane bagasse at three different conditions (180 °C–10 min, 180 °C–40 min, 200 °C–40 min), then we investigated the effect of this pretreatment on a subsequent pyrolysis stage. High‐pressure ion‐exchange chromatography (HPIC) and the 13C cross‐polarization/magic angle spinning (CP/MAS) solid‐state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) revealed that the autohydrolysis pretreatment significantly disrupted the hemicellulose fractions in the sugarcane bagasse and caused the breakage of lignin ether linkages in the sugarcane bagasse feedstocks. As the 31P NMR results indicated, the autohydrolysis pretreatment removed carboxylic acid groups up to 66.7 %, which could significantly address the corrosion problem of bio‐oils. Heteronuclear single quantum correlation (HSQC) analysis suggested that the autohydrolysis pretreatment effectively lowered the presence of the oxygenated aromatic compounds in the bio‐oils. Gel permeation chromatography (GPC) analysis of the bio‐oils indicated that the oils from severely pretreated sugarcane bagasse pyrolyzed at a low temperature (i.e., 400 °C) contained lower‐molecular‐weight components similar to those present gasoline products.
