Pyrolysis has been assumed to take place during catagenesis, the conversion of buried organic matter to fossil fuels.

Pyrolysis of burning material, especially incomplete combustion or smoldering without adequate oxygen supply, also results in production of a large amount of hydrocarbons, both aliphatic ( methane, ethane, ethylene, acetylene ) and aromatic ( benzene and its derivates, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons ; e. g.

Pyrolysis differs from other high-temperature processes like combustion and hydrolysis in that it usually does not involve reactions with oxygen, water, or any other reagents.

Pyrolysis is usually the first chemical reaction that occurs in the burning of many solid organic fuels, like wood, cloth, and paper, and also of some kinds of plastic.

Pyrolysis has been used since ancient times for turning wood into charcoal on an industrial scale.

Pyrolysis also plays an essential role in the production of barley tea, coffee, and roasted nuts such as peanuts and almonds.

Pyrolysis of fluoropolymers, e. g. teflon, in presence of oxygen yields carbonyl fluoride ( which hydrolyzes readily to HF and CO < sub > 2 </ sub >); other compounds may be formed as well, e. g. carbon tetrafluoride, hexafluoropropylene, and highly toxic perfluoroisobutene ( PFIB ).

Pyrolysis GC chromatograms are typically complex because a wide range of different decomposition products is formed.

Pyrolysis of solid waste converts the material into solid, liquid and gas products.

) Pyrolysis of fats requires a much higher temperature, and, since it produces toxic and flammable products ( such as acrolein ), it is, in general, avoided in normal cooking.

Pyrolysis gas chromatography mass spectrometry is a method of chemical analysis in which the sample is heated to decomposition to produce smaller molecules that are separated by gas chromatography and detected using mass spectrometry.

Pyrolysis of coal produces polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, which are known carcinogens.

Pyrolysis is a case of thermolysis, and is most commonly used for organic materials, being, therefore, one of the processes involved in charring.

Pyrolysis and gasification are two related forms of thermal treatment where waste materials are heated to high temperatures with limited oxygen availability.

Pyrolysis is the thermal decomposition of materials in an inert atmosphere or a vacuum.

Pyrolysis of polychlorinated biphenyls ( PCB ), e. g. from burning older transformer oil, and to lower degree also of other chlorine-containing materials, can produce 2, 3, 7, 8-tetrachlorodibenzodioxin, a potent carcinogen, and other polychlorinated dibenzodioxins.

Pyrolysis is a thermochemical decomposition of organic material at elevated temperatures without the participation of oxygen.

Pyrolysis also plays an important role in several cooking procedures, such as baking, frying, grilling, and caramelizing.

Pyrolysis occurs whenever food is exposed to high enough temperatures in a dry environment, such as roasting, baking, toasting, or grilling.

Pyrolysis of carbohydrates and proteins requires temperatures substantially higher than, so pyrolysis does not occur as long as free water is present, e. g., in boiling food — not even in a pressure cooker.

Its function is to control the expulsion of feces, unwanted semi-solid matter produced during digestion, which, depending on the type of animal, may be one or more of: matter which the animal cannot digest, such as bones ; food material after all the nutrients have been extracted, for example cellulose or lignin ; ingested matter which would be toxic if it remained in the digestive tract ; and dead or excess gut bacteria and other endosymbionts.

Some hypothesize that large quantities of wood were buried during this period because animals and decomposing bacteria had not yet evolved that could effectively digest the new lignin.

During the Carboniferous period, fungi and bacteria had yet to evolve the capacity to digest lignin, and so large deposits of dead plant tissue accumulated during this period, later becoming the fossil fuels.

To protect the seed during the growing season, the hull forms from hard materials, including opaline silica and lignin.

Masonite, a wood hardboard, was bonded using natural lignin, ( although most modern MDF particle boards use synthetic thermosetting resins ).

* Kappa number, a measure of lignin content in wood pulp

Many fungi are able to break down complex organic biomolecules such as lignin, the more durable component of wood, and pollutants such as xenobiotics, petroleum, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.

Cellulose and hemicellulose are the basic structural material of the wood cells ; lignin acts as a kind of cell-bonding glue.

Furthermore, cellulose is tougher than lignin, a fact demonstrated by the relatively ease with which wood can be split along the grain than across it.

Kraft and sulfite, also called sulphite, refer to the type of pulping process used to remove the lignin bonding the original wood structure, thus freeing the fibers for use in paper and engineered wood products such as fiberboard.

Fibre-reinforced polymers or FRPs include wood ( comprising cellulose fibres in a lignin and hemicellulose matrix ), carbon-fibre reinforced plastic or CFRP, and glass-reinforced plastic or GRP.

The method is able to use wood ( cellulose and lignin ) as a source of cellulose while the other methods need lignin-free cellulose as starting material.

Unlike dry rotted wood, the surface is made of the usual strong cellulose / lignin mix.

For instance, lignin is a component of wood, which is relatively resistant to decomposition and can in fact only be decomposed by certain fungi, such as the black-rot fungi.

Such tissues ( resistant chemical in brackets ) include wood ( lignin ), spores and pollen ( sporopollenin ), the cuticles of plants ( cutan ) and animals, the cell walls of algae ( algaenan ), and potentially the polysaccharide layer of some lichens.

Mechanical, or high-yield pulp used to make newsprint contains most of the lignin originally present in the wood.

In sulfite pulping, lignin is removed from wood pulp as sulfonates.

* Bleaching of wood pulp, whitening and lignin removal from wood pulp

Some morphological characters that were suggested to unite the anthophytes include vessels in wood, net-veined leaves ( in Gnetum only ), lignin chemistry, the layering of cells in the apical meristem, pollen and megaspore features ( including thin megaspore wall ), short cambial initials, and lignin syringal groups.

Jute fibres are composed primarily of the plant materials cellulose ( major component of plant fibre ) and lignin ( major components of wood fibre ).

Additionally, only wood-decay fungi have evolved the enzymes necessary to decompose lignin, a chemically complex substance found in wood.

Various reports suggest that the energy requirements for producing pulp from kenaf are about 20 percent less than those for wood pulp, mostly due to the lower lignin content of kenaf.

In wood samples, as the process proceeds, cellulose and lignin, two components of wood, are degraded and replaced with silica.