Enhanced distillate oil recovery from thermal processing and catalytic cracking of biomass slurry

An apparatus for thermal processing and catalytic cracking of an amount of a biomass comprising:

• a hopper configured to feed said amount of said biomass into a particle size reduction device wherein said particle size reduction device transforms said amount of said biomass into a particulate powder;
• a slurrying device and/or a blend vessel, wherein said particulate powder is mixed with a carrier fluid in said slurrying device and/or said blend vessel to form a reaction mixture;
• a heating device configured to heat said reaction mixture to create a hot reaction mixture;
• a heating vessel configured to heat said hot reaction mixture to a heated dehydrated reaction mixture at a first temperature;
• a second heating device configured to heat a catalyst slurry to a second temperature to create a heated catalyst slurry, wherein said catalyst slurry comprises a catalyst and said carrier fluid;
• and
• a reactor wherein said heated dehydrated reaction mixture is mixed with said heated catalyst slurry to form a catalytically active biomass slurry that undergoes catalytic depolymerization to form a fuel
• wherein said second temperature is below the activation temperature of said catalyst and wherein said first temperature is above the activation temperature of said catalyst.