The conversion of biomass pyrolysis vapors over HZSM-5 catalyst was characterized using a quartz reactor coupled to a molecular beam mass spectrometer (MBMS). In this system, biomass was batch fed into the reactor, pyrolysis vapors were passed over a hot gas filter prior to upgrading using HZSM-5 catalyst. Upgraded vapors were monitored in real-time using the MBMS until the catalyst was completely deactivated. In previous studies, hot gas filtration was used during non-catalytic fast pyrolysis to remove mineral and particulate matter, which resulted in production of stable bio-oils. In this work, we ran experiments using different filter configurations (coarse, fine and extra fine) to investigate the effect of filtration on the rate of deactivation of the catalyst. Our results show that filtration improves the life of catalyst, which in turn increases the yields of upgraded products. The improvement in catalyst lifetime was proportional to the degree of filtration.

Effect of hot gas filtration (HGF) on catalyst activity during ex situ catalytic fast pyrolysis of biomass

247th National Meeting (2014)

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