In this research, thermal and catalytic pyrolysis of neem seed as a non-edible feed has been investigated for the production of valuable chemicals including bio-oil, bio-char and bio-gas. The sensitivity analysis of main operating parameters of thermal pyrolysis process including temperature (350-550 °C), reaction time (30-180 min) and heating rate (10-40 °C/min) on the major products yield has been performed and the optimum operating condition to maximize the bio-oil production has been determined. The achieved results indicated that the maximum bio-oil production yield is obtained at temperature of 450 °C. The bio-oil production yield enhances with increasing the heating rate, whereas the process time in the considered range has not significant effect on the bio-oil production yield. Since the main focus of this study was catalytic upgrading of pyrolysis-derived bio-oil to valuable fuels, catalytic pyrolysis of neem seeds over industrial RFCC catalyst has been examined using different catalyst loading in the range of 10-40 wt %. It is inferred that more aromatic compounds will be generated with increasing the RFCC catalyst loading which could be attributed to the presence of Al 2 O 3 and zeolite in the catalyst structure. Also, the bio-oil and bio-gas production yields via catalytic pyrolysis process over 20 wt. % RFCC catalyst enhanced from 44.3 % to 49.5 % and 22.4 % to 27 % with increasing temperature from 350 and 450 °C, respectively.

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