This was done by Jim Diebold at SERI (now NREL) in the 80s.
His dad was a local farmer and USDA regional chief.
This can be done by dragging a toothpick or matchstick across
a red hot surface.
Mostly Ethylene gas comes off leaving the liquid as a trail on the heated plate.
Or you can shoot corn kernals into a heated cylinder so they whiz around
the inside periphery.
Argon gas is is used for dilution to prevent polyethylene formation.
We did it with dry Cow Dung too. Picture that. :-)
Fred
"Fuel Oil Quality of Biomass Pyrolysis Oils
State of the Art for the End Users"(5) Diebold, J.; Scahill, J. Production of Primary Pyrolysis Oils in a
Vortex reactor. In
Pyrolysis Oils from Biomass: Producing, Analyzing,and Upgrading
; Soltes, E. J, Milne, T. A., Eds.; ACS Symposium Series376, ACS, Washington, D. C.
1988; pp 31-40.
