Physicochemical characterization of forest and sugarcane leaf combustion's particulate matters using electron microscopy, EDS, XRD and TGA

Abstract

Physical characteristics and quantitative elemental composition of PM and residual ash produced from sugarcane leaves (SCL) combustion were investigated using TEM-EDS compared with forest leaves (FRL). SEM-EDS was used to analyze the microstructure and chemical composition of biomass raw leaves and PM. XRD analysis was also performed to investigate the characterization of the crystalline nanostructure, structure of PM, and residual ash compared to the TEM image processing method. The oxidation kinetics of biomass raw materials, PM, and residual ash were investigated by TGA. The morphology of fine and ultrafine agglomerate structure of SCL soot and residual ash are not significantly different from the FRL soot and residual ash. The average diameter sizes of single primary nanoparticles of SCL and FRL soot are approximately 37 nm and 35 nm, while the sizes of residual ash are about 18 nm and 22 nm, respectively. The single primary nanoparticles of soot are mainly composed of curve line crystallites of carbon fringes, while residual ash is composed of straight-line lattice fringes. The average fringe lengths of SCL and FRL soot are about 1.25 nm and 1.04 nm from the outer shell and 0.89 nm and 0.74 nm from the inner core. The interlayer spacing of curve line carbon fringes of SCL and FRL soot is approximately 0.359 nm and 0.362 nm by the TEM image analysis and it was matched with XRD analysis. The biomass PMs are mainly composed of soot, Si, Ca, and K compounds: SiO2, CaCO3, and KCl.