Oil production from an arid-land plant: Fixed-bed pyrolysis and hydropyrolysis of Euphorbia rigida

Abstract

Fixed-bed pyrolysis and hydropyrolysis experiments at different temperatures, heating rates and pressures have been conducted on a sample of Euphorbia rigida to investigate the product yields and characteristics. In hydrogen at 15 MPa and 550 degrees C, the trends in yield and product composition markedly differ from those found previously for coals and oil shales; also the oil yield of 41.5 wt% is more than double that obtained from static retorting. This increase by using high hydrogen pressure is much greater when expressed on a carbon basis, due to the reduced oxygen contents of the oils, and the carbon conversion is increased by similar to 25% relative to static retorting. Copyright (C) 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd.