Molecular-level monitoring of jet fuel precursors during the thermal degradation of poplar wood via flow-through reactor coupling online high-resolution mass spectrometry

• Published in: Proceedings of the Combustion Institute 2024, Vol.40 (1-4), p.105527, Article 105527
• Main Authors: Zhu, Linyu, Zhang, Jing, Xiao, Xintong, Kuang, Xun, Cui, Cunhao, Liu, Haoran, Zhou, Zhongyue, Qi, Fei
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: High-resolution mass spectrometry; Jet fuel; Lignin-first; Phenols; Process analysis
• ISSN: 1540-7489; 1873-2704
• DOI: 10.1016/j.proci.2024.105527

Sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) is the key to alleviating the fossil fuel crisis and achieving net carbon neutrality in the aviation industry. Extraction and conversion of the natural aromatic resources from lignocellulose into jet fuel precursors via the “lignin-first” strategy is anticipated to be a promising way for the production of SAF. However, the complexity of the feedstock and the harsh reaction conditions pose great challenges to the process analysis of the conversion and the molecular-level characterization of products. Herein, we developed an online high-resolution mass spectrometric measurement (HRMS) for the molecular-level monitoring of thermal degradation of real biomass in a flow-through reactor. The process of thermal solvolysis of poplar wood to produce phenolic jet fuel precursors under different temperatures was studied. Product distribution from lignin monomers to hexamers under different conditions was realized, with structures of typical phenolic products identified by tandem mass spectrometry. Evolution curves of typical dimers and oligomers revealed the progressive extraction-depolymerization process as well as the temperature effect on thermal solvolysis further verified via offline HRMS and high-performance liquid chromatography. Mechanism insights and industrial inspiration were also discussed based on the analysis of the experimental results. Moreover, the present work offers a promising HRMS-based diagnostic for the study of other sustainable fuel conversion systems.