Reductive catalytic fractionation (RCF) has emerged as a leading biomass fractionation and lignin valorization strategy. Here, flowthrough reactors were used to investigate RCF of poplar. Most RCF studies to date have been conducted in batch, but a flow-based process enables the acquisition of intrinsic kinetic and mechanistic data essential to accelerate the design, optimization, and scale-up of RCF processes. Time-resolved product distributions and yields obtained from experiments with different catalyst loadings were used to identify and deconvolute events during solvolysis and hydrogenolysis. Multi-bed RCF experiments provided unique insights into catalyst deactivation, showing that leaching, sintering, and surface poisoning are causes for decreased catalyst performance. The onset of catalyst deactivation resulted in higher concentrations of unsaturated lignin intermediates and increased occurrence of repolymerization reactions, producing high-molecular-weight species. Overall, this study demonstrates the concept of flowthrough RCF, which will be vital for realistic scale-up of this promising approach.

还原催化分馏（RCF）已成为一种领先的生物质分馏和木质素增值策略。在这里，流通式反应器被用来研究杨树的RCF。迄今为止，大多数RCF研究都是分批进行的，但是基于流程的过程可以获取对加速RCF过程的设计，优化和放大至关重要的内在动力学和力学数据。从不同催化剂负载量的实验中获得的时间分辨产物分布和产率用于鉴定和分解溶剂分解和氢解过程中的事件。多床RCF实验提供了催化剂失活的独特见解，表明浸出，烧结和表面中毒是催化剂性能下降的原因。催化剂失活的开始导致不饱和木质素中间体的浓度更高，再聚合反应的发生增加，从而产生了高分子量物质。总的来说，这项研究表明了流通RCF的概念，这对于切实可行地扩大这种有前途的方法至关重要。