Re: law of mass action

[AJH <andrew.heggie@dtn.ntl.com>]

On Tue, 22 Jan 2002 09:11:46 -1000, "Michael J. Antal, Jr."
<mantal@hawaii.edu> wrote:

>As noted in the discussion, the law of mass action pertains to reversible
>chemical reactions.  Unfortunately, biomass pyrolysis involves irreversible
>reactions.  Try to adjust temperature and pressure a little to recover wood
>from charcoal, pyrolysis oils, and gas!  For this reason, the law of mass
>action is largely irrelevant to any analysis of charcoal formation.
>Regards, Michael Antal.


Thanks Michael, sticking to technical matters:

Neither Kevin nor I were suggesting that pyrolysis could be in any way
reversible. I was attempting to give an overview of what biomass was
and how pyrolysis could leave a carbon residue.

As I said I am unfamiliar with the law of mass action, chemistry
lessons were 35 years ago for me and I never was a good student.
However over the years I have found I can mug up on things to better
understand what is going on. A better fundamental understanding of the
bounds of what can and cannot be done prevents undue frustration if
you expect too much.

Both Kevin and I did talk of changing the ratio of products by
altering the equilibrium between these products. I assumed the law of
mass action would apply here. For my part I can see a number of means
of changing the equilibrium:

by changing sequence of reactions
by changing temperature
by adding reagents
by application of catalysts
by changing pressure

and there may be many more.

Because I work at the local bioregional level my experiments tend to
be limited to modulating the temperature, for reasons I have
previously explained.

AJH

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