Catalytic Pyrolysis of Soybean Oil with CaO/Bio-Char Based Catalyst to Produce High Quality Biofuel

In this paper, CaO/bio-char was synthesized by directly co-pyrolysis of Ca(OH)2 and rice straw, and used as catalyst to catalytic pyrolysis of soybean oil to produce high quality biofuel. In this co-pyrolysis process, CaO particles has been successfully embedded on the bio-char surface. During the catalytic pyrolysis process, CaO/biochar showed a good catalytic performance on the deoxygenation of soybean oil. Pyrolysis temperature affected the pyrolysis reactions and pyrolytic products distributions dramatically, higher pyrolysis temperature lead to seriously cracking reactions, lower bio-oil yield and higher gases yield, and lower pyrolysis temperature lead to higher bio-oil yield with higher oxygenated compounds content and lower hydrocarbons contents, the suitable pyrolysis temperature was around 650??C. Under the optimal conditions (650??C with WHSV at 6.4 h???1 and carrier gas flow rate at 100 ml/min), the selectivity (%) of hydrocarbons in the bio-oil was more than 90%. CaO/bio-char catalyst still shows good catalytic deoxygenation activity after 4 cycles. 1 g of CaO/bio-char catalyst can catalyze pyrolysis of 32 g of soybean oil to produce high-quality liquid fuel. Bio-char based catalyst has been proved to be a promising catalyst for catalytic conversion of triglyceride-based lipids into high quality liquid biofuel.

Automated summary

CaO/bio-char catalyst was successfully synthesized and exhibited good catalytic performance in the pyrolysis of soybean oil, with a selectivity of hydrocarbons over 90%. The pyrolysis temperature significantly influenced the product distribution and properties, with 650℃ being the optimal temperature. The catalyst remained active after 4 cycles of use.