Low-cost biochar is a promising catalyst support for
catalytic
pyrolysis to produce pyrolysis oil, pyrolysis gas, and carbon nanomaterials
(CNMs). The effect of different Ni/biochar (four kinds of original
biochar and three kinds of modified biochar) catalysts on the yield
and properties of copyrolysis products from Chinese herb residue and
reused polypropylene (PP) was studied. Results show that the modified
biochar support had a high surface area and high catalytic activity.
Particularly, Ni/ZC (ZnCl2-modified biochar) obtained higher
yields of CNMs (2.92 wt %) and pyrolysis gas (55.44 wt %). Moreover,
it exhibited high stability in repeated use experiments. Interestingly,
the Ni/ZC catalyst showed the highest catalytic activity during second
reuse (ZC-R2) due to moderate precoking. The high content of hydrocarbons
and the C6–C20 component in the ZC-R2 group is attributed to
the stronger secondary cracking capacity. The stronger secondary cracking
capacity of the front-end catalyst may increase the content of CH4 in pyrolysis gas. Therefore, the Ni/ZC catalyst significantly
increased the yield of a high-quality 3D graphitic carbon network
structure in a second-stage reactor. This work contributes to the
industrial application of catalytic pyrolysis technology by reducing
the catalyst cost and increasing the product value.