Fast pyrolysis of bagasse catalyzed by mixed alkaline-earth metal oxides for the selective production of 4-vinylphenol

Abstract

4-Vinylphenol (4-VP) is a value-added phenol compound, which can be obtained from the pyrolysis of herbaceous biomass, and its yield can be further improved through the in-situ catalytic fast pyrolysis process. Herein, a barium-magnesium mixed metal oxide (BaMg-MMO) catalyst was developed and employed for the selective production of 4-VP from bagasse fast pyrolysis. The effects of Ba/Mg molar ratio in the BaMg-MMO catalyst, pyrolytic temperature, catalyst-to-bagasse (CA-to-BA) ratio were carefully investigated based on pyrolysis-chromatography/mass spectrometry (Py-GC/MS) tests. The 4-VP yield reached a maximal of 7.3 wt% with the corresponding selectivity of 44.4% at 300 °C under the Ba/Mg molar ratio of 1:1 and the CA-to-BA ratio of 4:1, compared with that of 5.0 wt% in the non-catalytic process. Moreover, a series of lab-scale fast pyrolysis tests of bagasse were carried out in a fixed bed reactor using BaMg-MMO with a Ba/Mg molar ratio of 1:1. The highest 4-VP yield and selectivity were 7.1 wt% and 56.6% at 300 °C with the CA-to-BA ratio of 1:1. The results indicated that BaMg-MMO could provide a promising catalytic performance on the formation of 4-VP during the fast pyrolysis of bagasse.