Title : Bio-Oil Upgrading to Alternative Diesel Fuel with Novel Catalysts
Abstract:
Bio-oil produced from biomass is regarded as a promising alternative fuel source for transportation in the future. However, some properties of bio-oil, such as high water and oxygen content, strong acidity, and low heating value, prevents it use as a fuel source in current engines. For this reason, bio-oil should be upgraded to gasoline or diesel [1,2]. In this study, the zeolite cracking process is used for upgrading bio-oil. Numerous compounds exists in bio-oil structure and model compounds should be employed in investigations. Acids, aldehydes and ketones are the major groups increasing the oxygen content of bio-oil. These groups will be represented with a mixture consisting of formic acid, furfural and hydroxypropanol(HPO), this mixture will be used as feed in reaction experiments. In this study, zeolite cracking process was conducted over alumina based catalysts. The quality of fuel phase was obviously improved when active metal addition to alumina supported catalysts. Catalysts utilized in reactions are required to have high Bronsted acidity in the structure which will be achieved via zirconia and tantalum loading in structure. Zirconia content increased reactant conversion and oil phase selectivity. Moreover, oil phase produced in the presence of tantalum catalyst had higher oxygen content then zirconia catalysts. Furthermore, increasing the reaction temperature also enhanced the selectivity of the oil phase. The conversion of the reactants reached to 90% and the selectivity of the oil phase reached to 17.5 wt.% in the co-cracking process under 400 °C and 1 bar. The oil phase had hydrocarbon content of 100% and mainly contained hydrocarbons with carbon numbers ranging from 5 to 10, which are the main components in commercial gasoline.
Audience take-away:
- The properties of alternative fuel of bio-oil that is preferred instead of fossil fuels.
- Learning about new concept catalysis for bio-fuel production.
- Methodology and optimum reaction conditions for efficient production of Bio-oil.
