The effect of mild hydrogenation on the catalytic cracking of bio-oil for aromatic hydrocarbon production

In order to reduce the coke formation and improve catalyst activation in the catalytic cracking of bio-oil, ethanol addition and mild hydrogenation pretreatment were introduced to improve the cracking stability. According to the analysis on the bio-oil molecular distillation, several typical compounds were selected as the representative of bio-oil distillation. Based on the two-stage fixed-bed reactor, the effect of mild hydrogenation on the cracking behavior of bio-oil model compound mixture was studied in detail. In a single-stage cracking process, the selectivity of oil phase was only 28-23 wt%, with the formation of abundant oxygenated byproducts. When mild hydrogenation was introduced before the cracking, the selectivity of oil phase increased up to 40wt% at 8 h, with an aromatic hydrocarbon content of over 90%. (C) 2015 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.