Chemical routes to hydrocarbons from pyrolysis of lignocellulose using Cs promoted amorphous silica alumina catalyst.

Lignocellulos biomass can be converted to bio-oil contg. aliph. hydrocarbons via catalytic pyrolysis at 500 °C in the presence of Cs modified amorphous silica alumina (Cs/ASA). The reaction routes for the formation of aliph. hydrocarbons was studied using biomass constituent, viz. cellulose, hemicellulose, lignin, and single model components in a pyrolyzer system in conjunction with GC/MS. The pyrolysis behavior of each biomass constituent was also studied using TGA. The results showed that in the presence of Cs/ASA catalyst aliph. hydrocarbons can be formed from all the three constituents but mainly from lignin (35% of total peak area compared to 10% for cellulose) resulting in high quality bio-oil with 40 Mj kg-1 heating value. On the other hand, the pyrolysis of single model compds. did not result in the aliph. hydrocarbons. However, pyrolysis of mixt. of the model compds. yielded in aliph. hydrocarbons indicating effect of intermol. interactions such as hydrogen transfer over Cs+ ions. [on SciFinder(R)]