PAH/Aromatic Tar and Coke Precursor Formation in the Early Stages of Triglyceride (Triolein) Pyrolysis

There has been a limited understanding of high MW polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) product chemistry in the pyrolysis of triglycerides (TGs), though the subject has important implications for both fuel production from TGs and food science. Previous TG pyrolysis studies have been able to identify only relatively low MW GC-elutable aromatics occurring in the bulk liquid phase; products occurring in the solid phase have remained inaccessible to chemical analysis. In contrast, cold gas expansion molecular beam methods, where pyrolysis products are analyzed in real time as they are entrained in gas expansions, remove product collection difficulties, thereby allowing for analysis of coke/tar PAH precursors. In this study, the model TG triolein was heated and the ensuing products in the molecular beam were soft photoionized, enabling time-of-flight mass detection. Use of 266 nm pulses enabled selective photoionization of aromatic products. Unlike previous work on analysis of the liquid phase TG cracking products, a different and distinct pattern of rather large PAHs, up to 444 amu, was observed, at nontrivial relative product fractions. With an increase of temperature to ∼350 °C, a small number of PAHs with MW ≥ 276 amu increasingly dominated the aromatic product distribution. Surprisingly, PAH product detection ensued at rather low temperatures, as low as ∼260 °C. For tentative PAH product identification and product chemistry rationalization, we observed the product homology pattern and applied a stoichiometric analysis. The latter, combined with the known homology profiles of TG cracking products, indicated specific patterns of intermediate fragment association that facilitated large-MW PAH formation as a result of TG cracking.