High-yield production of fuel- and oleochemical-precursors from triacylglycerols in a novel continuous-flow pyrolysis reactor

[Display omitted] •Developed and tested novel reactor for continuous pyrolysis of vegetable oils.•Oil fed via an atomizer - micron-sized droplets rapidly vaporized in the reactor.•Reactor design allows control of vapor residence time without use of carrier gas.•Achieved near-theoretical yield of organic liquid products.•Fuels (gasoline, jet and diesel) as well as enriched oleic acid were produced. In this study, conversion of soybean oil was carried out in a continuous pyrolysis system with feed injected through an atomizer. This allowed introduction of micron-sized droplets of oil that could be rapidly vaporized inside the reactor. With this novel design, we were able to achieve feed vapor residence times (τ) of 6–300s without use of carrier gas, which would significantly reduce the overall cost of pyrolysis. Effects of reaction temperature (450