Diffusion of Biomass Pyrolysis Products in H-ZSM-5 by Molecular Dynamics Simulations

Diffusion of biomass pyrolysis vapors and their upgraded products is an essential catalytic property of zeolites during catalytic fast pyrolysis and likely plays a critical role in the selectivity of these catalysts. Characterizing the diffusivities of representative biofuel molecules is critical to understand shape selectivity and interpret product distribution. Yet, experimental measurements on the diffusivities of oxygenated biofuel molecules at pyrolysis temperatures are very limited in the literature. As an alternative approach, we conducted MD simulations to measure the diffusion coefficients of several selected molecules, that are representative of biomass pyrolysis vapors, namely water, methanol, glycolaldehyde, and toluene in HZSM-5 zeolite. The results show the diffusion coefficients calculated via MD simulations are consistent with available NMR. measurements at room temperature.(1) The effect of molecular weight and molecular critical diameter on the diffusivity among the chosen model compounds is also examined. Furthermore, we have characterized the diffusivities of representative biofuel molecules, namely xylene isomers, in H-ZSM-5. Our calculations determined that the ratio of the diffusion coefficients for xylene isomers is p-xylene:o-xylene:m-xylene approximate to 83:3:1 at 700 K. Additionally, our results also demonstrate the different diffusivity between p-xylene and toluene is due to the molecular orientations when the molecules diffuse along the channels in H-ZSM-5 and provide deep insight into the effect of molecular orientation on its diffusivity.