The production of a liquid organic hydrogen carrier (LOHC) and jet fuel fractions by hydroprocessing of pyrolysis fuel oil (PFO)

Abstract

The scheme of combined processing of pyrolysis fuel oil (PFO) to obtain the components of synthetic jet fuel and liquid organic hydrogen carrier (LOHC) was proposed and experimentally evaluated. The PFO processing scheme includes primary distillation, two-stage hydrogenation and finishing distillation. The product was naphthene-rich fraction (PFO–H1) with a boiling range of T10%/T90% = 200/246 °C, the main components of which were bicyclic naphthenes (decalin, bicyclohexyl) according to GCxGC/MS. This fraction was studied as a potential LOHC. Its dehydrogenation produced a gas with an average H2 content of 98.0 vol %. The average hydrogen capacity of the PFO-H1 fraction amounted to ≈6.63 wt %. The isomers of decalins of alkylhydrindane-like type underwent dehydroisomerization reaction with formation of alkylnaphthalenes upon dehydrogenation. The dehydrogenated PFO-H0 fraction had density of 1005 kg m−3, boiling range T10%/T90% = 200/246 °C, flash point of 80 °C and pour point of −4 °C.Both the PFO-H1 and its isomerization product PFO-Hi were additionally characterized as potential components of high-energy-density jet fuels with relatively high specific gravities (d20 = 871/885 kg m−3) and calorific values (36.7/37.3 MJ L−1).