Study on the mechanism of catalytic fast co-pyrolysis of biomass and coal tar asphaltenes: Gas-liquid-solid products' optimization

It is very important to evaluate how coal tar asphaltenes (CTA) and corn cob (CB) could be used comprehensively in order to achieve zero waste. Catalytic co-pyrolysis is a feasible method to reduce CO2 emissions, realizing the development and utilization of biomass energy, and the recycling of asphaltenes. In this study, the catalytic effect of K on co-pyrolysis was more obvious than that of Ca, Co, Ni, Cu and Zn based on the analysis of TG/DTG, FTIR and Py-GC/MS. The response surface design method and artificial neural network were introduced to comprehensively investigate the effects of mixing ratios, metal loads and heating rates on the catalytic co-pyrolysis. The results showed that K -catalysis co-pyrolysis effectively improved the yield of gas and char, and increased the content of phenolics. In particular, when the load of K was 5.3 wt%, the heating rate was 476 degrees C/min, and the proportion of CB was 38 wt%, the maximum solid yield was 35.16 wt%, and the solid product had good catalytic ability. Based on the above analysis, the mechanism of K-catalysis co-pyrolysis was proposed.(c) 2023 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.