Study on Element Transfer in Corn Stalk Pyrolysis

Abstract. This study analyzed the contents of organic and inorganic elements in corn straw before and after the pyrolysis, simulated the element thermodynamics balance with the software of HSC-Chemistry, and investigated the migration of alkali metal elements during the pyrolysis of corn straw. The results showed that, the organic elements, including C, H, O, N and S, occupied the majority of the corn straw.The alkali metal element contents were the next, and the content of Ca was the highest, whose content reached 183.17ppb. The simulation showed that though the contents of Ca and Mg were higher than those of Na and K in corn straw, the contents of Na and K in biochar were higher than those of Ca and Mg. This phenomenon was due to that Ca and Mg easily outflew with pyrolysis gas, and the lose of Na and K through gas precipitation was low. This study revealed migration of alkali metal elements during the pyrolysis of corn straw, and it would help to solve the key technical problems in strawutilizationas clean energy.