(583dg) Catalytic Biomass and Low-Rank Coal Pyrolysis Under Natural Gas for Upgraded Oil Production

Biomass and low rank coal fast pyrolysis followed by hydrodeoxygenation upgrading is the most popular way to produce oil from biomass and coal. Such two-step process can be combined together as so-called hydropyrolysis treatment. This approach usually involves continuous hydrogen flow, resulting in significantly increased operation cost. Compared to hydrogen which is not naturally available and mainly produced through methane steam reforming, methane can be readily obtained from nature known as natural gas with low cost. Therefore, this study directly employed methane as reducing agent instead of hydrogen for removing oxygen from biomass and low-rank coal under the facilitation of specially developed low-cost supported catalyst, leading to significantly reduced operation cost. Moreover, methane itself was converted to higher hydrocarbons beneficial for extra liquid fuel production according to the synergetic effect between methane and co-existing higher hydrocarbons or even oxygenated hydrocarbons formed from biomass and low-rank coal volatilization. In addition, compared to hydropyrolysis, significant lower operation pressure (<1 MPa) was used for so-called catalytic methanolysis which produced almost transparent oil with improved quality and increased volume, accompanied by the notable methane consumption. Such promising experimental results shined light on its further commercialization.