Relationship between hydrogenation degree and pyrolysis performance of jet fuel

Understanding the relationship between the chemical composition and pyrolysis performance of endothermic hydrocarbon fuel (EHF) is of great significance for the design and optimization of advanced EHFs. In this work, the effect of deep hydrogenation on the pyrolysis of commercial RP-3 is investigated. Fuels with different hydrogenation degrees were obtained by the partially and completely catalytic hydrogenation and their pyrolysis performances were investigated using an apparatus equipped with an electrically heated tubular reactor. The results show that with the increase of hydrogenation degree, fuel conversion almost remains constant during the pyrolysis process (500-650 °C, 4 MPa), however, the heat sink increases slightly, and the anti-coking performance significantly improves, which are highly related to their H/C ratios. Detailed characterisations reveal that the difference of the pyrolysis performance can be ascribed to the content of aromatics and cycloalkanes: the former are prone to initiate secondary reactions to form coking precursors, while the latter could act as the hydrogen donor and release hydrogen, which will terminate the radical propagation reactions and suppress the coke deposition. This work should provide the guidance for upgrading EHFs by modulating the composition of EHFs.