A study on pyrolysis characterization and heating value of semi-carbonized wood chip

In this work, a semi-carbonized wood chip (SC-WC) was prepared by heat-treatment at low carbonization temperature. The pyrolysis characterization and heating value of the SC-WC at different heat-treatment temperature were evaluated. The pyrolysis characterization and heating value of the SC-WC were determined using thermal gravimetric analyzer (TGA) in N₂ atmosphere and calorimeter, respectively. From the TGA results, the thermal decomposition reaction of the SC-WC treated at by low temperature was similar to pure wood chip and the reaction was most actively occurred in the range of 200 °C to 400 °C, whereas the initial thermal decomposition temperature of the SC-WC increased with the increasing heat-treatment temperature. In addition, the heating value of the SC-WC showed a similar trend as to the decamposition temperature behavior. This is probably attributed to increased carbon content of SC-WC by the localized carbonization of the wood chip which consisted of cellulose, hemi-cellulose, and lignin.