Online upgrading of organic vapors from the fast pyrolysis of biomass

The online upgrading process that combined the fast pyrolysis of biomass and catalytic cracking of bio-oil was developed to produce a high quality liquid product from the biomass. The installation consisted of a fluidized bed reactor for pyrolysis and a packed bed reactor for upgrading. The proper pyrolysis processing conditions with a temperature of 500°C and a flow rate of 4 m3/h were determined in advance. Under such conditions, the effects of temperature and Weight Hourly Space Velocity (WHSV) on both the liquid yields and the oil qualities of the online catalytic cracking process were investigated. The results showed that such a combined process had the superiority of increasing the liquid yield and improving the product quality over the separate processes. Furthermore, when the temperature was 500°C, with a WHSV of 3 h−1, the liquid yield reached the maximum and the oxygenic compounds also decreased obviously.