Effective deoxygenation in catalytic fast pyrolysis (CFP) is crucial for bio-oil stabilization and its successful commercialization. Herein, we utilize a new analytical platform that couples gas chromatography (GC) to dopant-assisted atmospheric pressure chemical ionization (dAPCI) time-of-flight mass spectrometry (TOF MS) to evaluate catalytic deoxygenation of cellulose pyrolysis. Soft ionization and accurate mass measurement through dAPCI-TOF MS allows direct chemical composition analysis of GC-separated molecules, regardless of their presence in the database. The analytical approach was successfully demonstrated for its ability to evaluate catalytic efficiency of different catalysts and to monitor the change in CFP reaction products with catalyst-to-biomass load ratio. A total of 142 compounds could be analyzed with this approach compared to 38 compounds in traditional Py-GC-EI-MS analysis.
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/youngjin-lee/23/
NOTICE: This is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Journal of Analytical and Applied Pyrolysis. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Journal of Analytical and Applied Pyrolysis, 112, March 2015, doi: 10.1016/j.jaap.2015.02.008.