Catalytic co-pyrolysis of grape seeds and waste tyres as a low cost strategy in the production of hight quality bio-oils

Abstract

The concept of biorefinery emerges as a promising alternative to reduce environmental impact caused by extraction and processing of fossil fuels In that sense, the use of renewable sources and, more specifically, the use of lignocellulosic biomass is one of the best promising alternatives since it is the only carbon containing renewable source that can produce biofuels similar to fossil fuels and it does not compete with food production Among all the processes that can valorize lignocellulosic biomass, pyrolysis is an attractive alternative because it is the only thermochemical process that can produce a liquid biofuel (bio oil) in a simple way and solid and gas fractions that can be used as energy sources to support the process. However, in order to incorporate bio oils in current infrastructures and further processing in future biorefineries, their quality needs to be improved Introducing different low cost catalysts and/or incorporating different plastic residues to the process are some of the possibilities to achieve this aim in an economic way. The implementation of new, simple and low-cost strategy through catalytic co-pyrolysis of grape seeds and waste tyres using CaO as a catalyst in a specifically designed fixed-bed reactor, that allows the user to directly obtain high quality bio-oils to be used as renewable energetic vector.