(476e) Modeling and Thermodynamic Properties Measurements of Levoglucosan for Process Design, Simulation, and Optimization in the Production of Pyrolitic Biofuel

Bio-oil produced from pyrolysis of cellulose biomass has attracted much attention in recent years as fuels substitution and its potential production of chemicals. Levoglucosan (1,6-anhydro-β-D-glucopyranose) is the major intermediate component in the pyrolysis of cellulose that controls char formation. Thermodynamic properties of levoglucosan are important in the simulation of process design and process development dealing with the pyrolytic reactions involving this compound that occur in the biorefinery.

In this work, we present a comprehensive analysis of the thermophysical and thermochemical properties of levoglucosan such as vapor pressure, enthalpy of combustion, and enthalpy of formation in the gaseous phase using static bomb combustion calorimetry, Knudsen effusion technique, and differential scanning calorimetry along with the computational calculations of the gaseous phase thermodynamic properties performed using the Gaussian 03 software package. Our measurement results were published in the Journal of Chemical Engineering Data (J. Chem. Eng. Data, 2013, 58, 1813–1821; DOI: 10.1021/je400207t).

Since levoglucosan is a hygroscopic compound, therefore, we will also discuss the detailed procedure of material handling and the challenges during the measurements to obtain accurate and reliable results.

The authors acknowledged Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT), Lisbon, Portugal and FEDER for financial support to Centro de Investigação em Química, University of Porto (strategic project PEst-C/QUI/UI0081/2013). I.M.R. and T.L.P.G. thank FCT and the European Social Fund (ESF) under the Community Support Framework (CSF) for the award of the research grants with references SFRH/BD/61915/2009 and SFRH/BD/62231/2009, respectively.