In-situ catalytic upgrading of biomass pyrolysis vapor: Co-feeding with methanol in a multi-zone fixed bed reactor

The in-situ catalytic upgrading of the biomass pyrolysis vapor and its mixture with methanol were conducted in a fixed bed multi-zone reactor. The steps were comprised; thermally converting the biomass in the pyrolysis reactor, passing its vapor in contact with the HZSM-5 zeolite catalyst in the presence of methanol vapor, and transformation of the resulting upgraded pyrolysis vapor into the liquid product. The biomass pyrolysis and catalytic pyrolysis vapor upgrading were performed at 500 °C. The highly valuable chemicals production was a function of the hydrogen to carbon effective ratio (H/Ceff) of the feed. This ratio was regulated by changing the relative amount of biomass and methanol. More aromatic hydrocarbons (50.02 wt.%) and less coke deposition on the catalyst (1.3 wt.%) were yielded from the biomass, when methanol was co-fed to the catalytic pyrolysis process (H/Ceff = 1.35). In this contribution, the deposited coke on the catalyst was profoundly investigated. The coke, with high contents of oxo-aromatics and aromatic compounds, was generated by polymerization of biomass lignin derived components activated by catalyst acid sites.