Interest in hydrothermal carbonization (HTC) is increasing worldwide due to its outstanding capabilities. This study introduces a novel semi-continuous feeding system to feed the biomass slurry against the high pressure of an HTC reactor. As expected in a semi-continuous operation, the biomass would be instantaneously exposed to the desired pressure and temperature, instead of a gradual increase to the desired temperature. Higher degrees of carbonization, lower cellulose crystallinity, improved hexagonal graphene sheets, surface hydrophobic characteristics, and higher thermal stability were observed at elevated temperatures in products from semi-continuous HTC when compared with products from batch operation. Reaction pathways were proposed for both batch and semi-continuous operations on the basis of physical and chemical characterization results. For HTC at 260 °C, the proposed semi-continuous system showed approximately 3% higher carbon content in the obtained hydrochar and a 25-min reduction in required time to reach 260 °C. The promising conclusion of these results is that by introducing continuous systems in HTC, not only will the time of the process cycle decrease, it will also achieve higher degrees of carbonization.

由于其出色的功能，人们对水热碳化（HTC）的兴趣在世界范围内日益增加。这项研究引入了一种新型的半连续进料系统，以对抗HTC反应器的高压进料生物质浆料。如半连续操作中所预期的那样，生物质将立即暴露于所需的压力和温度，而不是逐渐升高至所需的温度。与分批操作的产品相比，在高温下半连续HTC的产品中观察到更高的碳化度，更低的纤维素结晶度，改进的六角形石墨烯片，表面疏水特性和更高的热稳定性。根据物理和化学表征结果，提出了间歇和半连续操作的反应途径。对于260°C的HTC，建议的半连续系统显示出所获得的烃类中的碳含量约高3％，达到260°C所需的时间减少了25分钟。这些结果的有希望的结论是，通过在HTC中引入连续系统，不仅会减少过程周期的时间，还将实现更高的碳化程度。