Coprocessing of pyrolysis oil in refineries

Fast pyrolysis is able to convert biomass into a liquid product with much higher energy density, which could constitute a starting material for the production of fuels for the automotive sector. In order to achieve this goal, bio-oil must be upgraded in order to reduce its oxygen content and produce hydrocarbons suitable for internal combustion engines. Instead of building dedicated biorefineries, a concrete and ready-to-use approach would be that of refining such liquid along with fossil oil in the existing refineries. This would result not only in reduced implementation costs but also in process improvements due to synergistic effects with fossil streams. In this chapter, the existing pathways for coprocessing are reviewed. Special attention is given to fluid catalytic cracking (co-FCC), which is the most investigated coprocessing approach up to now. A critical review of the existing literature is given, summarising the obtained results for hydrotreated, catalytic, and untreated pyrolysis oils. Other processes are presented as well, such as cohydrotreating. Finally, further considerations and perspectives about the integration between pyrolysis and conventional refineries are given.