Coke formation in the catalytic cracking of bio‐oil model compounds

Catalytic cracking plays an important role in upgrading crude bio‐oil. However, coke formation during the upgrading of bio‐oil can deactivate catalysts and is a major problem. In this work, the catalytic cracking of bio‐oil models was conducted to study the coke formation using a fixed‐bed reactor. The reaction conditions including temperature and weight hourly space velocity (WHSV) have significant influence on the coke yield. The liquid product was analyzed to illustrate the main reaction pathway occurring in the catalytic cracking of the oxygenated compounds in the bio‐oil. In order to clarify the molecular structure of the coke precursor, the trichloromethane extraction of the deactivated catalyst was analyzed by 13 C NMR. © 2014 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Environ Prog, 34: 240–247, 2015