Increasing light aromatic products during upgrading of lignite pyrolysis vapor over Co-modified HZSM-5

To upgrade pyrolysis vapors derived from the catalytic fast pyrolysis (CFP) of Baiyinhua lignite (BYHL) in a drop tube reactor, various Co-loading (1, 3, 6 and 10 wt%) zeolites were prepared via wet impregnation. The effect of Co-loading and pyrolysis temperature ranged from 400 to 700 °C on product yields and tar properties were investigated in this work. The results showed that the product yield and the composition of pyrolysis tar were significantly affected by Co-modified HZSM-5 and parent HZSM-5 compared with no catalyst. Incorporation of metal-Co in HZSM-5 had an additional effect on the performance of the parent HZSM-5. The total content of benzene (B), toluene (T), ethylbenzene (E), xylene (X) and naphthalene (N) significantly increased and it reached 24.2 mg/g at Co-loading of 3 wt% (3Co-H-5) at 600 °C. 3Co-H-5 exhibited also a promising performance in lowering the oxygen content from 49.8% without a catalyst to 14.6% by GC–MS analysis. The deoxygenation mechanisms over metal-Co active centers and acid-catalyzed reactions, such as isomerization and cracking, over acid sites of HZSM-5 were speculated in this work. In addition, the temperature of 600 °C is not only appropriate for fast pyrolysis of lignite to obtain a higher pyrolysis tar, but also for catalytic pyrolysis to obtain BTEXN.