Study on Napier grass leaf (NGL), stem (NGS) and leaf and stem (NGT) was carried out. Proximate, ultimate and structural analyses were evaluated. Functional groups and crystalline components in the biomass were examined. Pyrolysis study was conducted in a thermogravimetric analyzer under nitrogen atmosphere of 20 mL/min at constant heating rate of 10 K/min. The results reveal that Napier grass biomass has high volatile matter, higher heating value, high carbon content and lower ash, nitrogen and sulfur contents. Structural analysis shows that the biomass has considerable cellulose and lignin contents which are good candidates for good quality bio-oil production. From the pyrolysis study, degradation of extractives, hemicellulose, cellulose and lignin occurred at temperature around 478, 543, 600 and above 600 K, respectively. Kinetics of the process was evaluated using reaction order model. New equations that described the process were developed using the kinetic parameters and data compared with experimental data. The results of the models fit well to OPEN ACCESSEnergies 2015, 8 3404 the experimental data. The proposed models may be a reliable means for describing thermal decomposition of lignocellulosic biomass under nitrogen atmosphere at constant heating rate.

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The environmental impact from the use of fossil fuel cum depletion of the known fossil oil reserves has led to increasing interest in liquid biofuels made from renewable biomass. This study presents the first experimental report on the catalytic pyrolysis of Napier grass, an underutilized biomass source, using ZSM-5, 0.3HZSM-5 and zinc exchanged zeolite-A catalyst. Pyrolysis was conducted in fixed bed reactor at 600˝C, 30˝C/min and 7 L/min nitrogen flow rate. The effect of catalyst-biomass ratio was evaluated with respect to pyrolysis oil yield and composition. Increasing the catalyst loading from 0.5 to 1.0 wt % showed no significant decrease in the bio-oil yield, particularly, the organic phase and thereafter decreased at catalyst loadings of 2.0 and 3.0 wt %. Standard analytical methods were used to establish the composition of the pyrolysis oil, which was made up of various aliphatic hydrocarbons, aromatics and other valuable chemicals and varied greatly with the surface acidity and pore characteristics of the individual catalysts. This study has demonstrated that pyrolysis oil with high fuel quality and value added chemicals can be produced from pyrolysis of Napier grass over acidic zeolite based catalysts.