Supercritical Fuel Pyrolysis

Abstract

Supercritical pyrolysis experiments were conducted with the two-ring model fuel 1-methylnaphthalene at 585 C and pressures of 50 to 110 atm and at 80 atm and temperatures of 550 to 600 C. Quantification of the product polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) by high-pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC) showed linear increases in PAH yields with increasing pressure; with increasing temperature, rates of PAH yield increases rose steadily. Higher-temperature supercritical pyrolysis experiments with toluene showed that 700 C, the highest temperature of the reactor, was not hot enough to break aromatic C-C bonds in the supercritical fuel pyrolysis environment. Supercritical pyrolysis experiments were conducted with the model alkane fuel n-decane at 570 C and pressures of 40 to 100 atm and at 100 atm and temperatures of 530 to 570 C. Application of a newly developed normal-phase HPLC fractionation / reversed-phase HPLC analysis technique led to the identification of 276 individual product PAH of up to 9 aromatic rings many of which were first-time identifications as products of n-decane. Quantification of the PAH products showed exponential increases in PAH yields with increasing pressure or increasing temperature. Yields increased the most sharply for the highest-ring-number PAH, immediate precursors to carbonaceous solids.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
May 30, 2010
Accession Number
ADA564573

Entities

People

  • M. J. Wornat

Organizations

  • Louisiana State University

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Air Platforms
  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Ground and Sea Platforms

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Alkanes
  • Alkenes
  • Aromatic Compounds
  • Aromatic Hydrocarbons
  • Aromatic Polycyclic Hydrocarbons
  • Chemical Reactions
  • Chemical Synthesis
  • Chemistry
  • Chromatography
  • Cyclic Hydrocarbons
  • Dissociation
  • High Pressure
  • Hydrocarbon Fuels
  • Identification
  • Liquid Chromatography
  • Organic Chemistry

Fields of Study

  • Environmental science

Readers

  • Analytical Chemistry
  • Mathematics or Statistics
  • Organic Chemistry