Fast Pyrolysis of Deashed High-Urea-Formaldehyde Resin Biomass Waste for Platform Chemical and Carbonaceous Fuel

High ash andsss urea formaldehyde (UF) resin contents in particleboard sanding powder (SP) have restricted the effective resource utilization of SP and make it a hazardous biomass material for particleboard enterprises. To achieve high-value resource utilization of SP while addressing its hazardous disposal issues, different HCl concentration-oriented deashing pretreatments of SP coupled with fast pyrolysis was proposed for producing value-added pyrolytic sugar levoglucosan (LG) and high-quality pyrolytic char. The results show that H+ ions released from HCl solution could effectively remove structural ash, likely by disrupting the chemical linkages between the structural ash and lignocellulosic matrix. An amount of 2 mol/L HCl could achieve an over 95% removal rate of alkali and alkaline earth metals (AAEMs) in the ash while maintaining a low loss of polysaccharides. This considerably facilitated the glycosidic cleavage of cellulose into levoglucosan (LG), with the LG yield increasing from 2.18% of raw SP to 13.69% of 2 mol/L HCl deashed SP. Interestingly, it was found that HCl washing of SP facilitated the co-production of value-added platform chemical acetic acid via acid-catalyzed hydrolysis of acetyl groups in UF resin attached to the xylose unit, with the yield increasing from about 7% of raw SP to over 11% of HCl deashed one. Specifically, 2 mol/L HCl deashing pretreatment of SP significantly improved the quality of pyrolytic char with the ash content decreasing from 7.24% to 2.39% and fixed carbon content lifting from 54.08% to 76.04%, thus drastically improving the higher heating value (HHV) from 24.66% of raw SP-derived char to 30.05% of deashed SP-derived char. Moreover, the pyrolytic char CO2 gasification reactivity increased from 0.027 min−1 of raw SP-derived char to 0.034 min−1 of that derived from 2 mol/L HCl deashed SP, approaching that of the widely used industrial charcoal fuel. Pyrolysis kinetic analysis indicates that deashing pretreatment of SP makes the formation of value-added platform chemicals and high-quality carbonaceous fuel proceed more easily at a lower activation energy (214.39 kJ·mol−1) than that of raw SP (245.81 kJ·mol−1). This study offers a novel approach for the synergistic production of value-added chemicals and high-quality carbonaceous fuel from biomass waste materials with high contents of ash and UF resin, providing a feasible strategy for the clean and high-value resource utilization of wood-based industrial residues.