The pyrolysis of liquid n-hexadecane was studied on various catalysts with selective microwave (MW) heating of a catalyst possessing much greater microwave absorption capacity than the long-chain hydrocarbon studied. This method permits rapid heating of the catalyst to temperatures much higher than 400 °C, leading to reflux of the liquid substrate, movement of the catalyst granules within the substrate, and chemical transformations (cracking) of hexadecane. High pyrolysis selectivity relative to α-olefins was found on various catalysts such as magnetic microspheres (coal combustion ash), Al2O3/Al, and Pd/KTP (glass fiber). This behavior may be attributed to tempering of the primary products in the bulk of the liquid reagent. Furthermore, MW pyrolysis on magnetic microspheres was found to be accompanied by formation of rather thick carbon microfibers with diameter 300–500 nm.
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The authors thank V. F. Tikhov for providing a sample of metal-ceramics, V. A. Utkin and Yu. V. Patrushev for the chromatographic analysis, and N. A. Rudina for the SEM study of the samples. This work was carried out with the support of the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Project 19.2), Presidium of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Ordered Integrational Project No. 5, 2009–2011), and a grant from the President of the Russian Federation for the Support of Leading Scientific Schools NSh-3156.2010.3.
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Translated from Teoreticheskaya i Éksperimental’naya Khimiya, Vol. 46, No. 6, pp. 370–377, November-December, 2010.
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Udalov, E.I., Bolotov, V.A., Tanashev, Y.Y. et al. Pyrolysis of liquid hexadecane with selective microwave heating of the catalyst. Theor Exp Chem 46, 384–392 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11237-011-9169-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11237-011-9169-y