(749g) Entrained Flow Reactor to Minimize Vapor:Catalyst Contact Time for Biomass Pyrolysis

Catalytic fast pyrolysis (CFP) over zeolite catalysts has received considerable attention over the last decade as a promising technology for converting biomass to transportation fuels. HZSM-5 has been widely studied as a catalyst for the CFP process largely due to its ability to almost completely deoxygenate pyrolysis products to form olefins and aromatic hydrocarbons. However, the commercialization of CFP with HZSM-5 (or other zeolites) has been hindered by low yields of hydrocarbons, because large amounts of carbon are lost through formation of light gases and excessive coking of the catalyst. While it is known that zeolites coke rapidly in the presence of biomass vapors, most experiments utilized packed or bubbling beds where catalyst regeneration and circulation are difficult and the vapor:catalyst residence time is high. As such, the resulting bio-oil tends to be an average of fully upgraded, partially upgraded, and non-upgraded vapors. There is only one reported study¹ to our knowledge that investigated CFP in a riser reactor (i.e. low contact time) which was able to demonstrate high yields while maintaining very low oxygen content in the bio-oil. In this presentation we report on a entrained flow reactor designed to explore vapor:catalyst contact time and relate it to bio-oil yields and composition. This work utilizes both experimental and multiphase reactor simulations to investigate the transport and kinetic considerations of catalytic upgrading. Comparison of bio-oil yields and composition against packed or fluidized bed reactors will be presented.

 1.  Iliopoulou, E. F., et al., Green Chem. 2014, 16 (2), 662.