Research Article An Investigation into the Impact of Reaction Temperature on Various Parameters during Torrefaction of Sugarcane Bagasse Relevant to Gasification Anthony Anukam, 1,2 Sampson Mamphweli, 1 Prashant Reddy, 3 Omobola Okoh, 2 and Edson Meyer 1 1 Fort Hare Institute of Technology, University of Fort Hare, Private Bag X1314, Alice 5700, South Africa 2 Department of Chemistry, University of Fort Hare, Private Bag X1314, Alice 5700, South Africa 3 Department of Chemistry, Durban University of Technology, P.O. Box 1334, Durban 4000, South Africa Correspondence should be addressed to Anthony Anukam; aanukam@uf.ac.za Received 14 September 2015; Accepted 25 November 2015 Academic Editor: Mohsen Farahat Copyright © 2015 Anthony Anukam et al. Tis is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Torrefaction of sugarcane bagasse was conducted in an electric mufe furnace at 200, 250, and 300 ∘ C in order to establish the impact of heat treatment temperature on various parameters and as a method to improve sugarcane bagasse characteristics for the purpose of gasifcation. Te results show that weight loss of bagasse reduced as temperature of torrefaction increased due to excessive devolatilization. A reduced moisture and volatile matter content as well as improved calorifc value were also achieved with increasing temperature of torrefaction. Te torrefaction progress was again followed by elemental analysis of the material which showed the presence of C, H, and O in varying proportions depending on torrefaction temperature. Te decrease in the weight percentages of O 2 and H 2 as torrefaction reaction temperature increased resulted in the accumulation of C in the solid product. Te thermogravimetric analysis conducted established the maximum reactivity temperature of the torrefed material and revealed that the degradation of torrefed sugarcane bagasse was accelerated by thermal treatment of the material prior to analysis. Finally, the study established that torrefaction at 300 ∘ C led to a much more degraded material compared to the lower torrefaction reaction temperatures of 200 and 250 ∘ C, respectively. 1. Introduction Te efect of the application of fossil fuels for energy pro- duction on global environment has renewed the interest in the use of alternative energy sources because fossil fuels contain carbon that has been out of the carbon cycle for a long time, and therefore their combustion disturbs the carbon in the atmosphere. Biomass happens to be the only renewable source of carbon, a chemical element essential for the manufacture of chemicals and materials. Tere are two major routes to bioenergy production, which are ther- mochemical (combustion, gasifcation, and pyrolysis) and biological (anaerobic digestion and fermentation) processes. Tese processes can provide a near-term solution to the problem of energy [1, 2]. However, the low-quality properties of biomass are ofen revealed when a direct comparison is made with coal which is still the dominant solid fuel in heat and electricity generation in South Africa. Te use of raw biomass for energy production on a commercial scale has seriously been challenged by high cost of biomass storage, susceptibility to microbial degradation due to its hygroscopic nature, heterogeneous nature, and appreciable amount of O 2 relative to C that makes it thermally unstable and produces reasonable quantities of tar that can be problematic in con- ventional thermal conversion systems such as the gasifcation systems [3, 4]. Other issues include its low energy and bulk densities as well as its high moisture content, which requires drying before conversion including the high concentrations of alkali and alkaline earth metal elements. Tese features result in many issues such as the high energy required for Hindawi Publishing Corporation Journal of Chemistry Volume 2015, Article ID 235163, 12 pages http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2015/235163