The slow and fast pyrolysis of cherry seed Gozde Duman a , Cagdas Okutucu a , Suat Ucar b , Ralph Stahl c , Jale Yanik a,⇑ a Faculty of Science, Department of Chemistry, Ege University, 35100 Bornova, Izmir, Turkey b Chemistry Program, Izmir Vocational School, Dokuz Eylül University, 35160 Buca-Izmir, Turkey c Karlsruhe Institue of Technology, Division of Chemical–Physical Processing, Hermann-von-Helmholtz-Platz 1, 76344 Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen, Germany article info Article history: Received 18 January 2010 Received in revised form 8 July 2010 Accepted 13 July 2010 Available online 24 July 2010 Keywords: Biomass Cherry seed Pyrolysis Oil Characterization abstract The slow and fast pyrolysis of cherry seeds (CWS) and cherry seeds shells (CSS) was studied in fixed-bed and fluidized bed reactors at different pyrolysis temperatures. The effects of reactor type and tempera- ture on the yields and composition of products were investigated. In the case of fast pyrolysis, the max- imum bio-oil yield was found to be about 44 wt% at pyrolysis temperature of 500 °C for both CWS and CSS, whereas the bio yields were of 21 and 15 wt% obtained at 500 °C from slow pyrolysis of CWS and CSS, respectively. Both temperature and reactor type affected the composition of bio-oils. The results showed that bio-oils obtained from slow pyrolysis of CWS and CSS can be used as a fuel for combustion systems in industry and the bio-oil produced from fast pyrolysis can be evaluated as a chemical feedstock. Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Because of the economical and environmental benefits, biomass has got a growing interest as a chemical feedstock and energy source. Therefore, the European Union (EU) promoted the intro- duction of biofuels as possible sources to meet the Kyoto protocol requirements and to reduce its dependency on crude oil. The Euro- pean Directive 2003/30/EC fixed the targets of biofuels utilization for 2005 (2%) and 2010 (5.75%). At a first glance, biodiesel and bio- ethanol (first generation fuels) are being used as biofuel. But there are some problems related to the ‘‘first generation” biofuels, such as costs of biofuels production (government contribution), large land consumption for energy crops agriculture and growing of the food price. But these problems could be solved using the ‘‘sec- ond generation” of biofuels. The lignocellulosic residues from agro- forest and industrial production can be converted into biofuels by thermochemical processes such as pyrolysis, gasification and liq- uefaction. The pyrolysis of biomass is a very old energy technology that is becoming interesting again among various systems for the energetic utilization of biomass. Biomass is decomposed into con- densates, char and gas by pyrolysis. As it is known, the yield and composition of pyrolysis products depend on the composition of the feedstock and the pyrolysis conditions (temperature, residence time, pressure and heating rate). Long residence times at slow heating rates (slow pyrolysis) at low temperature produce mainly charcoal, and high temperatures mainly produce gaseous products. On the other hand, short residence times, fast heating rates, and moderate temperatures favor a high yield of bio-oil (Huber et al., 2006). The oil obtained from biomass can be used as an energy source and as a feedstock for chemical production. Biomass pyrolysis has been extensively studied at various reac- tion conditions: rice husk (Tsai et al., 2007), waste furniture saw- dust (Heo et al., 2010), rapeseed (Onay et al., 2001), switchgrass (He et al., 2009), apricot stone (Wei et al., 2006), sugarcane bagasse and coconut shell (Tsai et al., 2006). These studies were carried out by using fixed-bed or fluidized bed reactors. The effect of pyrolysis parameters such as pyrolysis temperature, heating rate, holding time, moisture, ash content of the feedstock, particle size, purge gas type and flow rate on the pyrolysis product yields and their chemical compositions have been investigated in these studies. The bio-oils produced from these feedstocks were also character- ized by using various chromatographic and spectroscopic techniques for being a potential source of renewable fuel and chemical feedstock. Turkey is an agricultural country and has abundant biomass sources. The use of biomass as a source of energy is very advanta- geous for Turkey. Because of climate and geographic conditions, many fruit species are grown as well as crops and other agricul- tural products. One of these is cherry. The climate in many regions of Turkey is appropriate for the cultivation of both sour and sweet cherries. Annual world production (2007) of domesticated cherries is about two million tones. Around 19% of the worldwide produc- tion originates in Turkey (FAO, 2007). In literature, there are several studies related to the production of activated carbon from cherry stones which are waste materials 0960-8524/$ - see front matter Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.biortech.2010.07.051 ⇑ Corresponding author. Tel./fax: +90 232 3888264. E-mail address: jale.yanik@ege.edu.tr (J. Yanik). Bioresource Technology 102 (2011) 1869–1878 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Bioresource Technology journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/biortech