1. Introduction

Pyroligneous acid also called wood vinegar is an aqueous liquid produced from pyrolysis of lignocellulose waste and biomass. They are formed by rapidly and simultaneously depolymerizing and fragmenting cellulose, hemicellulose, lignin and other constitutes of biomass. Those biopolymers were broken into smaller molecule with high temperature under air less atmospheres. The crude condensate smoke during pyrolysis was so called bio-oil. In order to prepare wood vinegar, this liquid is stand in a closed container for at least 3 months and decanted from sedimentation tar of bio-oil. The transparent solution in upper phase is practical wood vinegar. It has a special smoky odor and color is light yellow to brown depending on feedstock properties and pyrolysis system used for preparing it. The wood vinegar was very complex solution; the major proportion was water (80–90%) and minor proportion was more than 200 species of organic compounds. Recently, wood vinegar has been wildly applied for various proposes such as medicinal, smoky aroma, food and platelet aggregation and anti-dermatophyte activity in pharmaceuticals [1, 2]. In particular, in organic agriculture, a great number of toxic-chemicals were replaced by wood vinegar, a natural product, which has been used to combat disease and pests, stimulate plant growth, improve the quality of fruit, accelerate the speed of plant seed germination and serve as herbicides [3]. However, the physicochemistry and biological activity of wood vinegar are affected by many factors such as chemical composition of biomass, pyrolysis system and refining method.

variations in proportion of the constituents are not only depends on the plant species, but are also influenced by other factors such as habitat, age, part of the tree, etc. Hence, it could be deduced that variations in composition of feedstock used for the preparation of wood vinegar

Physicochemistry and Utilization of Wood Vinegar from Carbonization of Tropical Biomass Waste

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.77380

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Cellulose is a long-chain linear polymer of glucose that contains crystalline arrangements with smaller amorphous regions. There are arranged as micro-fibril which contributes to the structural component of the cell wall. In general, a similar content at approximately 43% wt is found

Hemicellulose is shorter or branched amorphous polymer of five-or six-carbon sugars which naturally are associated with cellulose and lignin to from the matrix. The sub-units of hemicellulose in hardwoods and herbaceous plants such as wheat straw, cornstover and switch grass consist mainly of D-xylose, whereas D-mannose, D-xylose and D-galactose are the principal

Lignin, the third cell wall component, is a three-dimensional polymer formed from phenyl propane units with many different types of linkages between the building blocks. The main building blocks in the biosynthesis of hardwood and softwood lignin are different in structure. In softwoods, guaiacyl lignin is predominantly found resulting from polymerization of a higher fraction of conifer phenyl propane units. In hardwood, guaiacyl-syringyl lignin is present . It is a copolymer between coniferyl and sinapyl phenyl propane units where sinapyl

The water-soluble and organic-soluble compounds may be extracted from the lignocellulose biomass. For instance, the organic-soluble compounds in wood include terpenes, fats, waxes, phenolic compounds, hydrocarbons and sugars, while the water-soluble compounds are

might give rise to different properties of the product.

Figure 1. Wood vinegar from agricultural biomass waste.

unit fraction is higher than that in softwood lignin [8].

in both hardwood and softwood [6].

constituents in softwood [7].
