Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Industrial Crops & Products journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/indcrop Research Paper Classification of biomass through their pyrolytic bio-oil composition using FTIR and PCA analysis Eliane Lazzari a , Tiago Schena a , Marcelo Caetano Alexandre Marcelo a , Carmem Tatiane Primaz a , Aline Nunes Silva a , Marco Flôres Ferrão a,b , Thiago Bjerk c , Elina Bastos Caramão a,c,d, ⁎ a UFRGS, Instituto de Química, ZIP 91501-970, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil b INCT-BIO, Instituto Nacional de Ciência e Tecnologia em Bioanalítica, Instituto de Química, Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Campinas, SP, Brazil c UNIT, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Biotecnologia Industrial (PBI), Aracaju, SE, Brazil d INCT-E & A, Instituto Nacional de Ciência e Tecnologia em Energia e Meio Ambiente, Salvador, BA, Brazil 1 ARTICLE INFO Keywords: Bio-oil FTIR PCA GC/qMS ABSTRACT Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, combined to principal components analysis (PCA), was applied in the classification of biomasses through the composition of their bio-oil. Bio-oils were produced through pyrolysis in a bed fixed reactor, using fifteen biomass sources available in Brazil and its characterization was made using gas chromatography coupled to mass spectrometric detector (GC/qMS). Around two hundred compounds were tentatively identified in the fifteen bio-oil samples. As expected, the chemical compositions in each bio-oil were distinct. Through the chromatographic information and PCA of the FTIR spectra it was possible observed the similarity and dissimilarity of biomasses according their bio-oil compositions. PCA revealed that FTIR spectra of biomasses fell into three different groups representing distinct bio-oil chemical compositions. The biomasses that belong to group 1 showed bio-oil compositions rich in carboxylic acids, the group 2 showed bio-oil compositions consisting predominantly of phenols and group 3 showed bio-oils with a significant amount of nitrogen compounds. Such clustering information allow exploring bio-oil quality prior to pyrolysis process. 1. Introduction The use of biomass as a renewable source of energy can reduce the dependency on fossil sources (Jahirul et al., 2012). In Brazil and in the world, the agro-industrial wastes are an interesting biomass source due to the large amount generated per year and to the environmental pro- blems associated with them. In the year 2015, only for sugarcane, cassava and coconut crops Brazil was responsible for more than 750, 22, and 5 million tons, respectively (IBGE, 2017; Rambo et al., 2015). For every ton of sugarcane, rice and coconut produced, approximately 250 kg of waste is generated and for cassava 490 kg of waste is gen- erated (Rambo et al., 2015; Pattiya and Suttibak, 2012). Brazil also is known as one of the largest producers of rice, with an annual produc- tion of approximately 12 million tons. Agro-industrial wastes from rice processing are equivalent to 3 million tons annually (Rambo et al., 2015; IBGE, 2017). Some of other agro-industrial wastes generated in high amount in Brazil are coffee husk, peanut shell, mango waste, pineapple leaves, cottonseed, peach pit, peanut shell and wood. Pyrolysis is a promising way to convert these biomasses into high- value products. The process of pyrolysis consists of the thermal de- composition of biomass at high temperatures and in the complete ab- sence of oxygen to obtain gas, solid (bio-char) and liquid (bio-oil) products (Bridgwater, 2012). In recent years, bio-oil has received a lot of attention due to its potential uses as biofuel (after upgrading process) or as a starting material for producing chemicals (Czernik and Bridgwater, 2004). Bio-oil is a complex mixture of water and a hundred of organic compounds that can be classified into the following categories: phenols, ketones, acids, esters, aldehydes, alcohols, furans, anhydrous-sugars, nitrogen containing compound, hydrocarbons, carboxylic acids (Jahirul et al., 2012). The distribution of these compounds in the bio-oil de- pends mainly on the variability of different proportions of lignin, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.indcrop.2017.11.005 Received 13 June 2017; Received in revised form 26 October 2017; Accepted 3 November 2017 ⁎ Corresponding author at: UFRGS, Instituto de Química, ZIP 91501-970, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil. 1 Home page: http://www.inct.cienam.ufba.br. E-mail address: elina@ufrgs.br (E.B. Caramão). Abbreviations: AB, aquatic biomass; AMS, almond of mango seed; CF, coconut fibers; CP, cassava peel; CS, crambe seed; CSK, coffee silverskin; CTS, cotton seed; DCM, dichloromethane; ES, eucalyptus sawdust; ETS, energetic tobacco seeds; FTIR, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy; GC/qMS, gas chromatography coupled to mass spectrometric detector; LTPRI, linear temperature programmed retention indexes; PC, peach cores; PCA, principal components analysis; PL, pineapple leaves; PLS, partial least squares; PS, peanut shell; RH, rice husk; SCB, sugarcane bagasse; SCG, spent coffee grounds Industrial Crops & Products xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx 0926-6690/ © 2017 Published by Elsevier B.V. Please cite this article as: Lazzari, E., Industrial Crops & Products (2017), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.indcrop.2017.11.005