Rheology of Different Corncob Biomass Slurries for Hydrodynamic Cavitation Based Biomass Pretreatment Process

Rheology properties of biomass slurry are considered essential for designing a bioreactor to understand the flow behaviour of materials inside the reactor. The biochemical composition of raw corncob samples used in this study include: 36 % of cellulose, 27.38% of hemicellulose and 17.60 % of lignin. Rheological measurements of corncob biomass slurrires at loadings of 2.50, 3.75 and 5.00 % indicated a non Newtonian behaviour, showing yield stress and shear thinning. Based on the results, it is concluded that, corncob biomass slurry loaded up to 5% could be well suited for hydrodynamic cavitation reactor used for pretreatment process.