Study on the mechanism of catalytic fast co-pyrolysis of biomass and coal tar asphaltenes: Gas-liquid-solid products' optimization.

It is very important to evaluate how coal tar asphaltenes (CTA) and corn cob (CB) could be used comprehensively in order to achieve zero waste. Catalytic co-pyrolysis is a feasible method to reduce CO 2 emissions, realizing the development and utilization of biomass energy, and the recycling of asphaltenes. In this study, the catalytic effect of K on co-pyrolysis was more obvious than that of Ca, Co, Ni, Cu and Zn based on the analysis of TG/DTG, FTIR and Py-GC/MS. The response surface design method and artificial neural network were introduced to comprehensively investigate the effects of mixing ratios, metal loads and heating rates on the catalytic co-pyrolysis. The results showed that K-catalysis co-pyrolysis effectively improved the yield of gas and char, and increased the content of phenolics. In particular, when the load of K was 5.3 wt%, the heating rate was 476 °C/min, and the proportion of CB was 38 wt%, the maximum solid yield was 35.16 wt%, and the solid product had good catalytic ability. Based on the above analysis, the mechanism of K-catalysis co-pyrolysis was proposed. Catalytic co-pyrolysis is a feasible method to reduce CO 2 emissions, realizing the development, utilization of biomass energy and the recycling of asphaltenes. In this study, the effects of K had more obvious catalytic effect than Ca, Co, Ni, Cu and Zn on the co-pyrolysis compared by TG/DTG, FTIR and Py-GC/MS. The response surface design method and artificial neural network were introduced to comprehensively investigate the effects of mixing ratios, metal loadings and heating rates on the catalytic co-pyrolysis. The results showed K-catalysis co-pyrolysis effectively improved the yield of gas and char, increased phenolic content, and the solid product had good catalytic ability. Based on the above analysis, the mechanism of K-catalyzed co-pyrolysis was proposed. [Display omitted] • Catalytic fast co-pyrolysis of corn cob and coal tar asphaltenes are investigated. • Metals, gas-liquid-solid products and influencing factors are analyzed. • K-catalysis increases phenols' content, and co-pyrolysis coke has catalytic ability. • Oxygenated compounds crack into small molecules such as ketones and aliphatics. • ANN model predicts product distribution by mixing ratio, heating rate and metal load. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]