CATALYTIC FLASH PYROLYSIS OF BIOMASS: CATALYST AND PROCESS DEVELOPMENT FOR PRODUCTION OF A FUEL PRECURSOR
Ali Imran is a PhD student in the Thermal Engineering (TE) research group. His supervisor is prof.dr.ir. G. Brem from the Faculty of Engineering Technology (ET).
Flash pyrolysis of biomass is a promising technology to produce pyrolysis-oil (bio-oil). However, the presently produced bio-oil is not suitable for direct use as a transportation fuel or as a fuel additive/precursor. The presence of oxygenated compounds in the bio-oil mainly contributes to its deleterious properties such as high viscosity, high acidity and resulting corrosiveness, instability upon storage, lower energy density than the conventional fuels by 50%, incompatibility and immiscibility with fossil fuels, thermal instability and tendency to polymerize under exposure of air. Catalytic de-oxygenation is considered as a first line option to overcome the problematic characteristics of the bio-oil. However, the challenge in de-oxygenation catalyst development is to design a catalyst that selectively removes the problematic oxygenates in the bio-oil and not the desired components. This thesis work aims to develop an efficient in-situ de-oxygenation catalyst to upgrade bio-oil into a high-quality fuel precursor. The second part of the thesis is focused on the catalytic flash pyrolysis of different triglycerides containing lignocellulosic feedstocks and triglycerides incorporated wood. The here applied online catalytic flash pyrolysis aims at the production of a hydrocarbons rich bio-oil that can be readily refined into transportation fuels using conventional technologies.
