Catalytic Cracking of Acetic Acid in a Microchannel Reactor

Pyrolysis oil from biomass could potentially become an inexhaustible source of fuel if the technical challenges associated with their upgrading can be resolved. Currently, cracking of pyrolysis oil in macroreactors is not economical because of the low space-time yield. In this work, acetic acid which serves as a model compound for pyrolysis oil was cracked with a HZSM-5 zeolite catalyst in a microchannel reactor instead of the conventional macroreactor, which is typically used. The microchannel reactor provides enhanced mass and heat transfer in comparison to macroreactors due to their high surface-to-volume ratio. In this study, the performance of the microreactor was evaluated by studying the effect of different operating conditions on the space-time yield, product yield and reactant conversion. Batch reactor experiments were also implemented to compare the performance to that of the microreactor.