Influence of temperature on the char produced through solar pyrolysis of Agave Angustifolia leaves

The coupling of concentrated solar technologies and thermochemical biomass conversion is a promising alternative because there is an improvement on the process efficiency and a reduction of the environmental impact related to the use of fossil fuels for heat process. Therefore, the use of solar pyrolysis of agro-industrial wastes into fuels results attractive due to the biomass versatility to be transformed in a variety of products. In the present work, leaves of agave Angustifolia were used as raw material to performed the solar pyrolysis in the IER-UNAM solar furnace (Mexico) to produce amorphous carbon. The experiments were performed in a borosilicate reactor at different temperatures (450-1550 degrees C), with an average heating rate of 30 degrees C/min and 60 min of residence time. The main results show a variety of yields in the char produced from 28-14%, and conversion up to 85%. In addition, according to the temperature range, the amorphous chars produced may be suitable for energy storage in symmetric supercapacitors as carbon electrodes.