Hydrocarbons from bio-oils. Performance of the matrix in FCC catalysts in the immediate catalytic upgrading of different raw bio-oils

MARISA FALCO; ULISES SEDRAN; ULISES SEDRAN; MELISA BERTERO; JUAN RAFAEL GARCÍA; MELISA BERTERO; JUAN RAFAEL GARCÍA; MARISA FALCO

Waste and Biomass Valorization

Springer

Lugar: Berlín; Año: 2017 vol. 8 p. 933 - 948

Matrices of FCC catalystswith different content of alumina and the compound catalysts prepared with themincluding Y zeolite were used to upgrade bio-oils from pine wood sawdust andsoybean shell. The biomasses were selected according to their different lignincontent which results in very different proportions of phenolic compounds (cokeprecursors) in the respective bio-oils. The bio-oils were produced by fastpyrolysis and the vapours were immediately upgraded over a fixed bed ofcatalyst at 550 ºC using a mass catalyst/bio-oil relationship of 3.5. In termsof hydrocarbon yield, the matrices were more effective in deoxygenating pinewood sawdust bio-oil and the compound catalysts in deoxygenating soybean shellbio-oil. These differences can be the consequence of the different compositionsof the bio-oils which, in the case of pine wood sawdust, includes a significantconcentration of phenolic ethers which form coke on the matrix and the externalsurface of the zeolite, thus preventing lighter compounds from accessing the micropore system of the compound catalysts. Pine sawdust bio-oil produced more coke than soybeanshell bio-oil; in the case of compound catalysts, coke deposited preferentiallyon the catalyst matrix, thus decreasing its mesopore specific surface area upto 65 %.