Research progresses on production of light olefins from catalytic pyrolysis of biomass

With rapid increasing in dependence on foreign crude oil and aggravating in domestic conflict of supply and demand, there is a short of supply in stock of olefins, restricting the development of light olefins industry. Therefore, extending the kind of stock of light olefins and adopting non-petroleum stocks are very important. Using biomass as the stocks to produce light olefins is very promising. The process of catalytic pyrolysis production of light olefins is simple, overcoming the disadvantages, such as complex process and long production period, of traditional gasification process. But it is also affected by many factors, such as biomass properties, catalyst and pyrolysis process conditions. This paper mainly discussed the effects of categories of biomass, H/C effective ratio, AAEMS temperature, ratio of catalyst to biomass, reactor, the methods of pyrolysis and the type of catalyst, on the yield of light olefins. Among them, the catalyst is the key factor of enhancing the yield of light olefins. At present, ZSM-5 is widely employed in the research of production of light olefins from catalytic pyrolysis of biomass, which is easy to deactivate due to carbon deposit. The modified catalysts have become the popular research subject. Two new methods of modifying catalysts are proposed. A conceptual design of new reactor was suggested, which may be useful for industrial applications. © 2017, Chemical Industry Press. All right reserved.