Study of products derived from the microwave-assisted thermal degradation of high-moor peat

   Peat reserves are of great interest for various industries (energy, fuel, chemical, etc.). It is common practice to use pyrolysis to process such solid carbon-containing resources with the subsequent yield of fuel and valuable products. One of the environmentally and energetically favorable ways to degrade carbon-containing feedstock that is currently under development is microwave-assisted pyrolysis. Microwave radiation provides volumetric heating of the material, which significantly increases heating uniformity across the volume of the irradiated sample, providing greater efficiency of heat transfer and avoiding local overheating on the reactor surface. In the conducted study, a system was designed for the microwave processing of organic materials. The structural elements of the system are described, and a schematic showing pyrolysis product separation is presented. A prototype of the developed reactor was used to conduct experiments on degrading high-moor sphagnum peat of the Greko-Ushakovskoe deposit under mild pyrolysis conditions induced by microwave radiation. The component composition of reaction products was analyzed via chromatography-mass spectrometry and compared with the results of previous experiments using conventional thermal pyrolysis. More advanced processing of peat is performed under the conditions of microwave-assisted mild pyrolysis with a high yield of valuable products due to a more efficient heat transfer, uniform heating of the material, and the optimal reaction rate. The developed technology is shown to produce raw materials for a wide range of high-tech industrial productions. The prospects for the industrial use of the proposed microwave-assisted peat processing technology are discussed, specifically for the production of efficient hydrophobic sorbent.

organic feedstock processing, peat, microwave pyrolysis, sorbents