See

discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/262056960

Extraction and Quantitation of Various

Potassium Salts in Straw Ash
Article in Environmental Progress & Sustainable Energy May 2014
DOI: 10.1002/ep.11988

CITATIONS

READS

136

5 authors, including:
Wang Yibin

Xuebin Wang

Xi'an Jiaotong University

Xi'an Jiaotong University

8 PUBLICATIONS 3 CITATIONS

51 PUBLICATIONS 284 CITATIONS

SEE PROFILE

SEE PROFILE

Xiaodi Qu
Xi'an Jiaotong University
1 PUBLICATION 0 CITATIONS
SEE PROFILE

All in-text references underlined in blue are linked to publications on ResearchGate,

letting you access and read them immediately.

Available from: Xuebin Wang

Retrieved on: 05 September 2016

Extraction and Quantitation of Various Potassium

Salts in Straw Ash
Yibin Wang, Xuebin Wang, Houzhang Tan, Wenzhi Du, and Xiaodi Qu
Department of Thermal Engineering, MOE Key Laboratory of Thermo-Fluid Science and Engineering, Xian Jiaotong University,
Xian, Shaanxi Province, 710049, China; tanhz@mail.xjtu.edu.cn (for correspondence)
Published online 00 Month 2014 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com). DOI 10.1002/ep.11988
Biomass ash contains various potassium salts, which have
high potential as crop fertilizers. In this study, a method of
extracting and quantifying various potassium salts from
straw ash was proposed and investigated. Straw ash was prepared in a muffle furnace at 500 C and then successively
and repeatedly treated through leaching, filtration, concentration, and crystallization. The extracted products were
analyzed by X-ray diffraction and X-ray fluorescence.
Results show that the elemental potassium content and potassium salt content in the recovered products reached 43.1
and 78.1%, respectively. The potassium salts mainly existed
as K2SO4, KCl, and K2CO3 at a molar mass ratio of
1:2.33:1.73. The extraction ratio of the products increased
with increasing extraction time. The initial extraction ratio
was 35.71%. This ratio increased to 50.15 and 69.43%
when the extraction process was repeated for the second and
sixth times, respectively. This work provides an efficient
method of recovering and extracting potassium salts from
C 2014 American Instibiomass ash for use as potash fertilizers. V
tute of Chemical Engineers Environ Prog, 00: 000000, 2014

Keywords: biomass ash, potassium salt, extraction

INTRODUCTION

In recent years, the use of biomass as a renewable alternative resource, particularly in direct-fired power generation,
has increasingly attracted considerable attention worldwide.
Approximately 5% of the heat and electricity in the UK is
generated from biomass resources. In Malaysia, electricity
from biomass is expected to reach 330 MW by 2015 [1,2].
China is the fastest growing country in terms of direct-fired
biomass power, and its installed capacity is projected to
reach 13 GW by the end of 2015 and 30 GW by 2020 [3]. At
present, China has more than 120 electricity-generating, biomass-fired power plants that annually consume large
amounts of biomass and produce biomass ash. Meanwhile,
large amounts of biomass are discarded or open-burned in
rural areas; thus, the comprehensive biomass utilization rate
in 2010 was only 70.6% [4]. Moreover, China has a serious
shortage of K sources and possesses only 1.63% of the
world resource. The domestic self-sufficiency in potash is
only 50% [5]. In 2010, China produced 3.81 million tons of
potash fertilizer (the value of which was calculated by converting the fertilizer into K2O) and imported 4.12 million
tons [6]. The availability of primary potash fertilizer significantly relies on the importer. Thus, a new potash production

C 2014 American Institute of Chemical Engineers

V

mode is urgently needed. Biomass ash contains a large

amount of various K salts, which can theoretically be
reclaimed to achieve K reutilization and reduce the waste of
available energy. In the future, the management of biomass
ash from biomass combustion would be an international
concern, along with increasing disposal costs and biomass
ash volume. Therefore, the extraction and utilization of
these K salts from biomass ash could address the energywaste issues and the imbalance between the supply and
demand of domestic potash. These methods can also reduce
environmental pollution and promote agricultural and economic developments.
Several studies have been conducted on the possible
reuse and recycling of biomass ash as a substitute for building materials such as concrete, cement, ceramic bricks, and
building panels [716], and as a filler for bituminous mixtures. In Portugal, Esteves [9] found that the use of 20% biomass fly ash with 10% metakaolin to replace mortars can
effectively mitigate alkalisilica reactions in concretes. Perez
Villarejo [11] reported that the water absorption and compressive strength of bricks containing a maximum of 20%
ash from a biomass incinerator are sufficiently high to satisfy
the UNE standards of Spain. An extensive study on the recycling of biomass ash as fillers has been conducted by the
Energy Research Center of the Netherlands; their results
showed that fly ash from biomass gasification are a valuable
alternative to natural fillers in bituminous mixtures [17].
Melotti [18] studied the physical and chemical properties of
21 different combustion-derived biomass ashes that are used
as aggregate fillers in bituminous mixtures. The results indicated that the properties of these ashes widely vary, and that
these ashes have low concentrations of organic matter and
harmful substances. Thus, these ashes are potential replacements for natural fillers in bituminous mixtures.
Biomass ash has been proved potential to be added as
the substitute or filler for the building materials, moreover, it
can be also recycled and collected alone to extract much
more valuable substance. Few of studies have also been conducted on matter extraction from biomass or biomass ash.
Liaw [19] studied the leaching characteristics of organic and
inorganic matter from biomass and found that the leaching
of water-soluble monovalent species (Na1 and K1) is faster
than that of divalent species (Ca21 and Mg21) because of the
higher diffusion coefficients of the monovalent species; in
addition, the leaching of K and Na from the leaf and wood
achieved equilibrium within the first 10 min. Qin [20] cooked
rice straw in deionized water and obtained the white crystalline substance, which mainly contains K and Cl. The filtrate

Environmental Progress & Sustainable Energy (Vol.00, No.00) DOI 10.1002/ep

Month 2014 1

Table 1. Proximate and ultimate analyses of wheat straw.

Proximate analysis/wt %

Ultimate analysis/wt %

Sample

Mad

Aad

Vad

FCad

Cad

Had

Oad

Nad

St,

Wheat straw/wt%

3.88

6.01

72.10

18.01

43.92

4.47

40.98

0.44

0.30

ad

Clad

Qnet, ad
(MJ
kg-21)

0.49

14.77

results for this straw are shown in Table 1. Prior to the test,
the straw was crushed and ground to a size below 300 lm.
The straw was then dried for 24 h at 105 C, sealed, and
placed in a desiccator until use according to the standard of
GB/T 212-2008. In this study, biomass was subjected to four
steps: crushing, ashing, extracting, and refining.

Figure 1. Leaching device. [Color figure can be viewed in

the online issue, which is available at wileyonlinelibrary.
com.]

was subjected to filtration, distillation, concentration, oxidation, and other processes and then analyzed using by
energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy. The available K in the
rice straw was determined as 1.96%, and the total K was
2.03%. Feng [21] showed that microwaves can destroy cell
walls to release K in organic matter; the total amount of K,
which accounts for 3.57% of the rice straw, can be separated
by microwave technology under optimal conditions. Hong
[22] found that the three K salts (i.e., K2CO3, KCl, and
K2SO4) from cotton ash can be repeatedly obtained and separated via evaporation, filtration, and crystallization based on
the principle that the solubility of the three salts differ in
varying temperatures, but there is no further information on
solid extraction products.
The previous few works have proposed the leaching and
extracting methods and focused on the effect of biomass
ash, however, no further works on the in-depth extraction of
potassium salts and quantitative analysis on different kinds
of potassium salts are reported. In this article, the leaching
characteristics of biomass ash were investigated by extracting
K salts from ashes of wheat straw as the raw material and
deionized water as the leaching agent. In addition, the form
and content of the K salts obtained from the extraction at different stages were determined using (X-ray diffraction (XRD)
and X-ray fluorescence (XRF). The mass fractions of the different components were then calculated using an element
equilibrium method to provide a theoretical basis for industrial potash production using biomass ash, and a method to
quantify the content of KCl, K2SO4, and K2CO3 in the extraction products of biomass ash was proposed.

EXPERIMENTAL METHODS

Biomass Raw Materials

The wheat straw used in this study was from Baoji City in
Shanxi Province, China. The proximate and ultimate analysis
2 Month 2014

Experimental Apparatus and Methods

The experimental apparatus included a DF-101S (ShanXi
taikang Biology Science & Technology, China) constanttemperature heating magnetic stirrer (CHMS), muffle furnace,
drying oven, AEL200-type electrical balance, and certain
chemical glassware. Figure 1 shows the CHMS in detail. The
CHMS was electrically heated and operated at a maximum
temperature of 399 C. The beaker temperature was maintained at 90 C through constant heating in an oil bath. The
thermocouple was used to measure the oil bath temperature.
Magnetic stirring was applied to facilitate the separation of K
salts. The muffle furnace, which exhibits an error of 63 C,
was used in the ashing experiment at 500 C.
XRD (Panalytical, Netherlands) was used to identify the
predominant crystalline compounds in the extracted samples.
The diffraction angle was scanned from 10 to 90 . XRF
(Se-Pioneer, Bruker, Germany) was used in elemental content determinations with an accuracy of 0.05%, and the content measurement by XRF was repeated for two times to
minimize the error.
The scheme of the experiment, including weighing, ashing, leaching, filtration, heating, concentration, stoving, and
other operations, is shown in Figure 2. Wheat straw used as
the raw material and ashed in the muffle furnace at 500 C
for 2 h and then cooled to room temperature for weighing,
based on the standard of ASTM/E870-82 and GB/T212-2001.
A 10 g sample was submerged and soaked in a beaker containing 80 mL of deionized water. Meanwhile, leaching was
performed at 90 C by controlling the CHMS electric power
and pushing the button to maintain magnetic stirring for 1 h.
Afterward, the leaching solution was filtered, and the residue
was collected to prepare for the next leaching process using
a filter paper. Residuum washing was repeated for six times,
and in each cycle, the filtrate was heated in an oil bath at
135 C to facilitate rapid filtrate evaporation and ensure that
no boiling occurred. The extracted substance was then collected, and then subjected to fine filtration. The extracts
were pooled during the weighing and sample preparation.
Nearly 1 g sample was analyzed by XRD and XRF to investigate the compositions and quantitatively determine the contents of the different K salts.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Elemental and Mineral Distributions in the Biomass

Ash
Previous investigations show that the volatilization rates of
alkalis in herbaceous plant combustion at 550 C are negligible
and elemental K mainly began to volatilize at 750 C. In the biomass pyrolysis, the alkali release sharply increases when the
temperature is increased to 600 C, and then the rate of alkali
release exponentially increases until 900 C [23,24].

Environmental Progress & Sustainable Energy (Vol.00, No.00) DOI 10.1002/ep

Figure 2. Experiment scheme. [Color figure can be viewed in the online issue, which is available at wileyonlinelibrary.com.]

Table 2. Ultimate analysis of biomass ash by XRF.

Element
Content/wt %

Na

Fe

Al

Cl

Mg

Ca

Si

0.201

0.645

0.88

1.15

1.29

1.45

1.82

4.62

7.75

14.5

15.6

49.9

such as K2SO4, KCl, and K2CO3, are observed. Waterinsoluble substances, such as SiO2, CaCO3, and K(Si3Al)O8,
are also found. The XRF and XRD results indicate that K
extraction by leaching or washing is theoretically feasible.

Figure 3. XRD patterns of biomass ash. [Color figure can be

viewed in the online issue, which is available at wileyonline
library.com.]

Consequently, the ashing temperature in the present study was

set at 500 C to minimize K volatilization at high temperatures,
and the obtained biomass ashing ratio is 10.2% on dry basis.
One gram of the biomass ash sample was prepared for
XRF analysis. The results are shown in Table 2. The K content of the biomass ash is close to the Si content and is
higher than that of other elements except O. Such a high
content of K indicates that K recovery from biomass ash is
worthy of investigation. However, how much of these
K-containing compounds are soluble and whether the
extracting product can be used as fertilizers or other raw
materials still require further certification.
The biomass ash sample was analyzed by XRD, and the
pattern result is shown in Figure 3. Water-soluble substances,

Changes in the Biomass Morphology During Treatment

Figure 4 shows the morphological changes of biomass
materials during the different processing steps. In Figure 4a,
the crushed biomass (khaki) exhibits nonuniform particle diameters; a number of bigger particles are shown by slabs or bars.
After ashing in the muffle furnace, the biomass ash (light gray
particles in Figure 4b) turned into powder when pressed.
Deionized water was then added into the beaker to leach the
biomass ash under constant stirring for 1 h. During this process, the leaching solution was black and thick. The white solid
residues and yellow leaching solution were separated from the
thick liquid using medium-speed qualitative filters. The yellow
solid appeared after heating and stirring (Figure 4c). Afterward,
the yellow solid was subjected to refining and grinding. Finally,
we obtained the yellowish solid shown in Figure 4d.
Effect of Extracting Times on Extracting Ratio of
Potassium
The extracting ratio of K is calculated basing on following
formula:
w5

Mc mc
3100%
M w ma mk

(1)

where w is extracting ratio of K in each treating process, Mc

is the mass of extracting product, mc is the content of K in
extraction (Table 3), and Mw is the mass of raw material, ma
is the biomass ashing ratio, mk is the content of K in ash.
The relation between the extraction ratio and extraction
repeating times is shown in Figure 5. It indicates the

Environmental Progress & Sustainable Energy (Vol.00, No.00) DOI 10.1002/ep

Month 2014 3

Figure 4. Morphological changes of ash in different processing stages. [Color figure can be viewed in the online issue, which
is available at wileyonlinelibrary.com.]

extraction ratio of potassium increases but the potassium

ration in the residuals decreases with increasing in repeating
times. The extracting ratio of K is initially 35.71% and
increases to 50.15 and 57.61% when the extraction is
repeated for the second and third times, respectively. Afterward, the process is repeated for a number of times. Finally,
the total extracting ratio for K was calculated as 69.43%. This
result indicates the successful extraction of K using water as
the leaching agent.
Quantification of the Elements and K Salts in Ash After
Treatment
The biomass ash leaching solution was subjected to finer
extraction, but some of the white solid residues were still
found on the filter paper. The white solid was analyzed by
XRD and the patterns in Figure 6 show numerous and complex peaks for SiO2, CaCO3 and K(Si3Al)O8, but there is no
peak of K-containing specie was detected. These results indicate that the white solid contains negligible or insoluble K,
most of K is mainly found in the filtrate, and this extraction
method results in no loss on soluble K.
The filtrate was dried in the oven to obtain a light-yellow
crystalline solid, which was subsequently analyzed using XRD
and XRF. Table 3 shows the XRF ultimate analysis results of
the biomass ash crystals extracted from biomass ash. The
extracted crystals mainly contain K, O, Cl, S, and C elements,
4 Month 2014

and should be relatively pure because the content of the other

elements only accounts for 2.77%. The produced crystals contain a large amount of K which should mainly exist as three
forms: K2SO4, KCl, and K2CO3.
The refined extract was analyzed by XRD and the results
are shown in Figure 7. In the XRD patterns, the characteristic
peaks of K2SO4, KCl, and K2CO3 overlapped one another.
These results of XRF and XRD indicate that the crystalline
substance mainly consists of the three kinds of potassium
salts.
All the analysis results above indicate that the elements of
S, Cl, and C in the extraction mainly exist in K2SO4, KCl, and
K2CO3. The contents of the three K salts in the crystals were
then obtained by theoretical calculations. The mass of the
three K salts were determined by Eq. 2;
me
(2)
mK 5MK
Me
where mk is the calculated mass ratio of different K salt
needing to compute(i.e., K2CO3, KCl, or K2SO4); Mk is the
molar mass of K salt; me is the mass ratio of element S, Cl or
C listed Table 3; Me is the molar mass of element S, Cl, or C.
The calculated mass ratios of KCl, K2SO4, and K2CO3 contents in the extracted crystals are 23.08, 23.16, and 31.86%,
respectively. Dividing the mass ratio by the molar mass of
K2SO4, KCl, and K2CO3, we could obtain the molar ratio of
these three salts in the crystals as 1:2.33:1.73.

Environmental Progress & Sustainable Energy (Vol.00, No.00) DOI 10.1002/ep

Table 3. X-ray fluorescence (XRF) ultimate analysis of the crystal product.

Element
Content/wt %

Cl

Other elements

43.1

36.1

11

4.26

2.77

2.77

Figure 7. XRD pattern of crystalline substance. [Color figure

can be viewed in the online issue, which is available at
wileyonlinelibrary.com.]
Figure 5. Potassium ratio in the extraction and the residue
with the extracting times. [Color figure can be viewed in the
online issue, which is available at wileyonlinelibrary.com.]

Figure 6. XRD pattern of the white solid. [Color figure can

be viewed in the online issue, which is available at wileyonlinelibrary.com.]

Figure 8. Distribution of the relative mass fractions of the

major elements in biomass ash. [Color figure can be viewed
in the online issue, which is available at wileyonlinelibrary.com.]

massK 5massCl

The above calculation only refers to the element content
of S, Cl, and C, but the measured content of potassium is not
considered. If we calculated a value of potassium content
using the measured content of S, Cl, and C, will this calculated value be close to the measured content of potassium
43.1% in Table 3?
Because the results of XRF in Table 3 shows the other elements except K/O/S/Cl/C only account for 2.77% and XRD
patterns in Figure 7 also show no other species detected significantly except K2SO4, KCl, and K2CO3, we assume the
other element content 2.77% is neglected and all the potassium in the extraction exist as K2SO4, KCl, and K2CO3. Consequently, we can calculate a value of potassium content
using the measured content of S, Cl, and C as Eq. 3:

MK
2MK
2MK
1massS

1massC

MCl
MS
MC

(3)

where massK is the calculated K content in the crystal product; massCl, massS and massC are the measured content of S,
Cl, and C in Table 3; M is referring to the atomic weight of
noted elements.
Through Eq. 3 we could obtain a calculated mass content
of potassium as 40.47%, which is very close to the measured
potassium content of 43.1% shown in Table 3, and the difference between the calculated and measured value is only
2.63%. Moreover, the calculated value of 40.47% does not
include the part of potassium combined with the other elements like Si and Al in the residuals of 2.77%, if we included
the minor potassium in the residuals of 2.77%, the calculated
and measured potassium should be much closer. Therefore,

Environmental Progress & Sustainable Energy (Vol.00, No.00) DOI 10.1002/ep

Month 2014 5

a mass balance between the content of potassium and the

content of S/Cl/C is achieved based on XRD/XRF measurement and calculation.
The difference in the in pre- and post-treatment contents
of the major elements in biomass is shown in Figure 8. After
leaching with water, the K content sharply increased, whereas
the Si and Ca contents decreased at varying degrees. The
major elements found in the concentrated extract are O, K,
and Cl. The extraction of K from biomass ash is simple and
straightforward and thus warrants further study. To utilize biomass ash as a fertilizer, the soil should first be sprayed a certain volume of water to achieve the optimum fertilizer effect.
CONCLUSIONS

1. A concise method was proposed to recover and extract K

salts from straw ash for use as potash fertilizer. XRF and
XRD analyses were then used to quantify various K salts
in the products.
2. The proposed extraction process is simple, straightforward, and does not produce secondary pollution. The initial extraction ratio of the products can reach 35.71%. This
ratio increases with increasing extraction time and can
reach 50.15 and 69.43% when the extraction process is
repeated for the second and sixth times, respectively.
3. The elemental K content and K salt contents in the recovered products can reach 43.1 and 78.1%, respectively. The K
salts mainly exist as K2SO4, KCl, and K2CO3. In addition, the
mass percentages of these three K salts are 23.16, 23.08, and
31.08%, respectively, and the molar mass ratio is 1:2.33:1.73.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This study was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 51306142 and 51376147).
LITERATURE CITED

1. Ward, D.J. & Inderwildi, O.R. (2013). Global and local

impacts of UK renewable energy policy, Energy & Environmental Science, 6, 1824.
2. Shafie, S.M., Mahlia, T.M.I., Masjuki, H.H., & Rismanchi, B.
(2012). Life cycle assessment (LCA) of electricity generation
from rice husk in Malaysia, Energy Procedia, 14, 499504.
3. Niu, Y., Du, W., Tan, H., Xu, W., Xiong, Y., Hui, S., &
Liu, Y. (2013). Further study on biomass ashcharacteristics
at elevated ashing temperatures: The evolution of K, Cl, S
and the ash fusion characteristics, Bioresource Technology, 129, 642645.
4. Xiao, T., He, C., Ling, X., Jin, C., Wu, S., & Yuan, W.
(2010). The status of the comprehensive utilization of
crop straw resources and strategy research in China,
World Agriculture, 12, 3133.
5. Li, F. (2013). The suggest on sustainable development
strategy of potassium resource in China, Forum for
Advancement, 3, 54.
6. Qi, Z., Duan, S., Liu, F., & Mei, Z. (2012). Production and
supply of potash fertilizer in China in the recent years
and its development forecast, Phosphate & Compound
Fertilizer, 6, 13.
7. Fernandez-Pereira, C., de la Casa, J.A., G
omez-Barea, A.,
Arroyo, F., Leiva, C., & Luna, Y. (2011). Application of biomass
gasification fly ash for brick manufacturing, Fuel, 90, 220232.
8. Maschio, S., Tonello, G., Piani, L., & Furlani, E. (2011).
Fly and bottom ashes from biomass combustion as
cement replacing components in mortars production:
Rheological behaviour of the pastes and materials compression strength, Chemosphere, 85, 666671.

6 Month 2014

9. Esteves, T.C., Rajamma, R., Soares, D., Silva, A.S.,

Ferreira, V.M., & Labrincha, J.A. (2012). Use of biomass
fly ash for mitigation of alkali-silica reaction of cement
mortars, Construction and Building Materials, 26, 687
693.
10. Sinsiri, T., Kroehong, W., Jaturapitakkul, C., &
Chindaprasirt, P. (2012). Assessing the effect of biomass
ashes with different finenesses on the compressive
strength of blended cement paste, Materials & Design,
42, 424433.
11. Perez-Villarejo, L., Eliche-Quesada, D., Iglesias-Godino,
F.J., Martnez-Garca, C., & Corpas-Iglesias, F.A. (2012).
Recycling of ash from biomass incinerator in clay matrix
to produce ceramic bricks, Journal of Environmental
Management, 95 (Suppl), S349S354.
12. Cuenca, J., Rodrguez, J., Martn-Morales, M., SanchezRoldan, Z., & Zamorano, M. (2013). Effects of olive residue biomass fly ash as filler in self-compacting concrete,
Construction and Building Materials, 40, 702709.
13. Modolo, R.C.E., Ferreira, V.M., Tarelho, L.A., Labrincha,
J.A., Senff, L., & Silva, L. (2013). Mortar formulations with
bottom ash from biomass combustion. Construction and
Building Materials, 45, 275281.
14. Barbosa, R., Lapa, N., Dias, D., & Mendes, B. (2013).
Concretes containing biomass ashes: Mechanical, chemical, and ecotoxic performances. Construction and Building Materials, 48, 457463.
15. Sata, V., Tangpagasit, J., Jaturapitakkul, C., &
Chindaprasirt, P. (2012). Effect of W/B ratios on pozzolanic reaction of biomass ashes in Portland cement matrix.
Cement and Concrete Composites, 34, 94100.
16. Amat, R.C., Ibrahim, N.M., Rahim, N.L., Tajudin, N.S.B.A.,
& Ahmad, K.R. (2013). Fire resistance of biomass ash
panels used for internal partitions in buildings, Procedia
Engineering, 53, 5257.
17. Pels, J. R., de Nie, D. S., & Kiel, J. H. A. (2006). Improvement of the economics of biomass/waste gasification by
higher carbon conversion and advanced ash management, Project final report of ECN (GASASH), 82.
18. Melotti, R., Santagata, E., Bassani, M., Salvo, M., & Rizzo,
S. (2013). A preliminary investigation into the physical
and chemical properties of biomass ashes used as aggregate fillers for bituminous mixtures. Waste Management,
33, 19061917.
19. Liaw, S.B., Wu, H. (2013). Leaching characteristics of
organic and inorganic matter from biomass by water: Differences between batch and semi-continuous operations.
Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research, 52, 4280
4289.
20. Qin, J.,Yu, C., Nie, H., Li, L., Luo, Z., & Cen, K. (2010).
The effect of temperature on transformation and release
of potassium during the straw combustion, ACTA Energiae Solaris Sinica, 31, 540544.
21. Feng, Y. (2008). Potassium extraction and recovery in
straw, M.S. Dissertation, Chengdu University of Technology, 320.
22. Hong, G., Kong, Q., & Xu, X. (2007). The leaching of
straw ash and the seperation of three potassium salt,
Agro-Environment and Development, 114116.
23. Thy, P., Jenkins, B.M., Grundvig, S., Shiraki, R., & Lesher,
C.E. (2006). High temperature elemental losses and mineralogical changes in common biomass ashes, Fuel, 85,
783795.
24. Olsson, J G., Jaglid, U., Pettersson, J. B. C., & Hald, P.
(1997). Alkali metal emission during pyrolysis of biomass,
Energy & Fuels, 11, 779784.

Environmental Progress & Sustainable Energy (Vol.00, No.00) DOI 10.1002/ep