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Biomass and Bioenergy 25 (2003) 113 – 117

Bio-oil from pyrolysis of cashew nut shell—a near fuel

Piyali Das, Anuradda Ganesh∗
Energy Systems Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai 400076, India
Received 6 March 2002; received in revised form 21 August 2002; accepted 28 October 2002

Abstract

Cashew nut shell (CNS) has been studied for the product distribution in a packed bed vacuum pyrolysis unit. The e3ect
of pyrolysis temperatures on the product yields is also studied. The oil-to-liquid ratio in the pyrolysis products was found to
remain almost constant in the range between 400◦ C and 550◦ C. The properties of CNS oil has been found to be amazingly
near to that of petroleum fuels with calori7c value as high as 40 MJ kg−1 , the oil has a low ash content (0.01%) and water
content is limited to 3–3:5 wt% of oil.
? 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Cashew nut shell; Vacuum pyrolysis; Bio-oil

1. Introduction CNSL, which is pericarp Guid of the cashew nut [2].

India is the largest producer, processor and exporter
of cashews, Anacardium occidentale Linn., in the
world. It was brought to India during the 1400 by Por-
tuguese missionaries. Cashew came, conquered and
took deep root in the entire coastal region of India.
While the tree is native to central and South America
it is now widely distributed throughout the tropics,
particularly in many parts of Africa and Asia. In
India Cashew cultivation now covers a total area of
0.70 million hectares of land, producing over 0.40
million metric tons of raw cashew nuts [1]. Presently,
cashew nut shell liquid (CNSL) is obtained as a
by-product of cashew industry.
The Cashew nut has a shell of about 1/8 inch
thickness, with a soft honeycomb structure inside,
containing a dark brown viscous liquid. It is called
∗Corresponding author. Tel: +91-22-2576-7886; fax: +91-22-
2576-7890.
E-mail address: aganesh@me.iitb.ac.in (A. Ganesh).
Commercially, CNSL is extracted by various methods
[3,4] like roasting nuts and collecting expelled liq-
uids, extraction with hot CNSL without charring the
kernels, superheated steam treatment method and sol-
vent extraction method, etc. The CNSL is reported to
be 15 –20% by weight of the unshelled nut in Africa,
25 –30% by weight in India and 25% overall [4].
CNSL and its derivatives have been reported to
be useful in innumerable applications [5–8] in
polymer-based industries like friction linings, paints,
primers, and varnishes, cashew cements, adhesives,
binder resins, polyurethane-based polymers, etc.
CNSL forms the basic raw materials for vast num-
ber of chemicals and intermediates [9,10] including
bactericides, germicides, insecticides, disinfectants,
emulsifying and surface active agents.
The present paper reports the studies on pyrolysis
of CNS for production of oil and its potential use as a
fuel. Pyrolysis is one of the thermochemical conver-
sions in the absence or limited supply of air or oxy-
gen. Today, pyrolysis is generally used to describe

0961-9534/03/$ - see front matter ? 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 9 6 1 - 9 5 3 4 ( 0 2 ) 0 0 1 8 2 - 4
114 P. Das, A. Ganesh / Biomass and Bioenergy 25 (2003) 113 – 117

processes in which preferred products are liquid oils Table 1

especially those with desirable chemical composition Proximate analysis of the CNS and de-oiled (upto 150◦ C) CNS
and physical attributes for liquid fuels, fuel supple- CNS De-oiled CNS
ments and chemical feedstock [11]. The liquid pyrol- (wt% on as (wt% on as received
ysis fuels apart from being energy rich, are easier to received basis) CNS basis)
handle, store and transport in combustion application Moisture 10.43 —
and can be upgraded to obtain light hydrocarbons for Volatile matter 69.31 58.00
transport fuel. Fixed carbon 19.26 19.20
Ash 1.00 0.9

2. Experimental procedure
Cashew nut shell (CNS) obtained from Pondicherry,
an union territory in southern part of India, has been
used for the present study. The sample belongs to the
variety Vengurla, one of the most common varieties
grown in India. Immediately after harvest the cashew
nuts were sun dried for few days to have moisture
content between 8% and 10% after which they were
shelled. It is to be noted that during the measurement
of moisture content using ASTM method, dark brown
oil oozes out along with the moisture removal. The
moisture content has been calculated as the di/er-
ence of the weight of the original biomass and the
weight of the ‘oil plus the de-oiled biomass’ at the
corresponding temperature.
Weighed amount of CNS is taken for drying in two
di3erent petridishes and placed in the oven at 105◦ C
for 3 h. The temperature of the oven is then raised at
a step increase of 25◦ C to a maximum temperature of
200◦ C keeping for 2 h at each temperature level. For
one of petridishes the oil oozed out at every temper-
ature was removed, weighed and kept separately and
only the de-oiled cashew was kept in the oven back
for next step increase of temperature. In the case of
second petridish, at each stage, the petridish was re-
moved, weighed and put back into the oven for the
next step increase of temperature.
The CNS after removal of oil up to 150◦ C is
weighed and pyrolysed for the study of product dis-
tribution in a packed bed vacuum pyrolysis unit. The
proximate and ultimate analysis of both, CNS and
de-oiled (up to 150◦ C) CNS, have been given in
Tables 1 and 2, respectively. However, in case of
the de-oiled CNS, proximate and ultimate analysis
results were calculated on the basis of original CNS,
i.e., the mass loss during de-oiling process been taken
into account. The reactor is made of stainless-steel
Table 2
Ultimate analysis of the CNS and de-oiled (upto 150◦ C) CNS
CNS De-oiled CNS
(wt% on as (wt% on as received
received basis) CNS basis)
C 48.7 34.63
H 6.96 4.95
N 0.36 0.36
O (by di3erence) 42.96 34.22
304 pipe of scheduled 10. The length of the reactor
is 600 mm. The reaction conditions are maintained
at, initial reactor vacuum pressure of 5 kPa and at
various maximum temperatures between 400 –600◦ C,
with an increment of 50◦ C for each experiment. The
product distribution at each of these temperatures has
been analysed. The volatiles removed on pyrolysis
are gradually condensed in a preweighed condensing
train, from atmospheric condensation to condensa-
tion in an ice bath (5 –7◦ C). The total condensable
collected in the condensing train is termed as total
liquid. Among the total liquid, 2rst three fractions,
which are directly combustible without any further
treatment, are termed as bio-oil CO2 . The other
fractions, which are noncombustible, contain water
and light organics.
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Experiments at low temperatures (100 –200◦ C)
Fig. 1 represents the cumulative oil yield at vari-
ous temperatures from 100◦ C to 200◦ C. In case of the
cumulative oil yields calculated based on the oil re-
moved at every temperature level, it can be seen that
 P. Das, A. Ganesh / Biomass and Bioenergy 25 (2003) 113 – 117 115

18
16

cummulative oil yield (%)

14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
105 125 150 175 200

temperature

percentage oil yield of CNS (without removing oil at every stage)

percentage oil yield of CNS (with removing oil at every stage)

Fig. 1. Percentage oil yield of CNS with heating temperature.

after 150◦ C, the increase in the oil yields is marginal. 45

Wt. % of product yield on dry CNS basis

On the other hand, the cumulative oil yields calcu- 40

lated without removing the oil separately at each stage, 35
implies that, at each temperature level the oil includes 30
the amount oozed out at that temperature and also ac- 25
counts for any oil loss through vaporisation. In this 20
case, it is interesting to note that after 150◦ C there is 15
a decrease in the cumulative oil yields, indicating the 10
decrease of the oil yield by evaporation being more
5
than the marginal addition in the oil percentage by
0
the oil oozed out at higher temperatures. Therefore, a 400 450 500 550 600
temperature of 150◦ C has been selected to be an opti- Temperature(°C)
mum temperature for removal of low temperature oil Total Liquid Char Gas
along with the moisture. The CNS used for pyroly-
Fig. 2. Pyrolysis product distribution of CNS with temperature.
sis is therefore, the one, which has been subjected to
150◦ C and the oil collected separately. This oil called
as oil CO1 for any further references in this paper.
The typical char yields are about 19 –23% in the range
3.2. Experiments at high temperatures (vacuum of 400 –600◦ C being maximum at 400◦ C and 14 –
pyrolysis) 20% gas yields (measured by di3erence) in that range,
with a maximum at 600◦ C. Fig. 3 shows the varia-
The product distribution (wt% of total liquid, char tion of bio-oil yield (within the total liquid) with py-
and gas) on pyrolysis of CNS at di3erent tempera- rolysis temperature. The maximum bio-oil yield was
tures are represented in Fig. 2. The total liquid per- achieved at 500◦ C. It is interesting to note that the
centage varies from 37% (400◦ C) to a maximum of bio-oil-to-total liquid ratio remains almost constant
42% (500 –550◦ C) and dropping to 36% (at 600◦ C). in the entire range between 400 –550◦ C as shown in
116 P. Das, A. Ganesh / Biomass and Bioenergy 25 (2003) 113 – 117

25 Table 4
Wt.% of oil on dry CNS basis

Oil Physical properties of oil CO1 and CO2

24
23 Properties Oil CO1 Oil CO2

22 Ash 0.01 0.01

(ASTM D482)
21
Moisture 3.5 3
20 (ASTMD1744)
Density at 28◦ C (kg m−3 ) 0.993 0.987
19
ASTM D4052-86 And IP 365/84
18 Absolute Viscosity (cSt) at
400 450 500 550 600 30◦ C 159 166
Temperature(°C) 60◦ C 33 39
80◦ C 17 16
Fig. 3. Percentage weight variation of CNS pyrolysis oil with (ASTM D445-88 and IP 71/87)
temperature. Flash point (◦ C) 180 164
(ASTM D93 and IP 34/88)
Pour point (◦ C) −5 −5
Table 3 (ASTM D97-87 and IP 15/67)
Variation of oil-to-liquid ratio with temperature of CNS pyrolysis Elemental composition
(wt% on dry basis)
Packed bed temperature (◦ C) Oil-to-liquid ratio
C 76.4 79.9
400 0.549 H 10.5 11.8
450 0.557 N ¡ 0:2 ¡ 0:2
500 0.566 O (by di3erence) 12.9 8.1
550 0.554 Calori7c value (MJ kg−1 ) 33 40
600 0.590 (ASTM D240)
Solid content (%) Nil Nil
(as methanol insoluble material)
Miscibility (%)
Table 3. At 600◦ C however, it is seen that there is a Hexane 100 73
decrease in the total liquid content, which is attributed Methanol 100 100
to thermal cracking at this temperature. This is in ac- Acetone 100 100
cordance to the resulting higher gas content at this Diesel (HSD) 100 100
temperature as seen in Fig. 2. All the further studies
have been conducted at 500◦ C, i.e. at the condition of
maximum oil yield. The oil obtained at 500◦ C will be tures. The high miscibility with diesel and methanol
referred as oil CO2 in the later sections of this paper. is an useful factor for considerations as a fuel. The
viscosity, though on the higher side at 30◦ C, reduce
drastically at higher temperatures.
4. Physical properties of CNS oil

The physical properties of the oil CO1 and CO2 5. Conclusions

have been studied using standard test procedures and
are reported in Table 4. It is interesting to observe that
these oils have a much higher calori7c value in com-
parison to the values obtained for bio-oils from other
biomass. The calori7c value of the bio-oil from the
pyrolysis of CNS is as high as that of conventional
petroleum fuels. This is in accordance with the lower
oxygen percentage found in the elemental composi-
tion of the oil. The Gash point also being high indicates
that the oil is suitable for storage at room tempera-
The CNS oil (both obtained by heating between
100◦ C and 150◦ C and on vacuum pyrolysis) has fuel
like properties worth a detail study. The maximum
oil yields of about 40% (∼ 15–16% obtained up to
150◦ C plus 24% obtained on pyrolysis) have been
achieved. A temperature of 500◦ C for pyrolysis is op-
timum yielding the maximum percentage of oil. How-
ever, the liquid-to-oil ratios are independent of the
maximum temperature of pyrolysis in the temperature
 P. Das, A. Ganesh / Biomass and Bioenergy 25 (2003) 113 – 117
range between 400◦ C and 550◦ C. The calori7c value
of the oil from CNS is unusually high like petroleum
fuels and therefore can be considered to be a promis-
ing bio-oil with a potential as a fuel.
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