1 Influence of carrier gas on microwave-induced pyrolysis 1 D. Beneroso, J.M. Bermúdez, A. Arenillas, J.A. Menéndez* 2 Instituto Nacional del Carbón, CSIC, Apartado 73, 33080 Oviedo, Spain 3 * Corresponding author. Tel.: +34 985 118972; Fax: +34 985 297672 4 E-mail address: angelmd@incar.csic.es 5 6 Abstract 7 Interest in microwave-induced pyrolysis has increased in recent years due to its several 8 advantages over conventional pyrolysis. Most of these advantages are related to the 9 presence of microplasmas in microwave heating, since the pyrolysis reactions that take 10 place in a plasma atmosphere generally produce light molecules, such as H 2 and CO. 11 Although the exact nature of these plasmas is as yet unknown, it is likely to be 12 dependent on the ionization of the surrounding gases. For this reason, the influence of 13 different carrier gases (N 2 , He or no carrier gas) on microwave-induced pyrolysis was 14 chosen as the subject of this study. It was found that microwave-induced pyrolysis can 15 be used to obtain equally good gas compositions and yields after the reactor has been 16 inertized, without the need for a carrier gas. 17 18 Keywords 19 Microwave pyrolysis, Carrier, Microplasmas, Syngas 20