Biomass to Hydrocarbons by Catalytic Fast Pyrolysis

The U.S. has a pressing need to develop technologies to convert non-food biomass resources into fuels and chemicals. Current technologies have major disadvantages, including poor product distributions, slow reaction rates, and high costs. We are working on a new pyrolysis technology to convert lignocellulosic biomass into either alkenes or alkanes. A series of commercial and synthesized catalysts have been tested for pyrolysis and upgrading activity. The results of these tests proved the technical feasibility of using pyrolysis chemistries to convert an important component of lignocellulosic biomass into hydrocarbons. The Phase I technology will be scaled-up to the laboratory scale and use the scaled-up reactor to evaluate catalyst activity, selectivity, longevity, and regenerability properties.