Sustainable Graphite and Jet Fuel from Biorefinery Residue

Lower, Lillian; Rowland, Steven M.; Regula, Michael; Iisa, Kristiina; Combs, Zachary A.; Park, Sunkyu; Vries, Tijmen; Vries, Ton; Nimlos, Mark R.; Sagues, William Joe

doi:10.1002/cssc.202402509

Sustainable Graphite and Jet Fuel from Biorefinery Residue

Journal Article · Fri Feb 28 00:00:00 EST 2025 · ChemSusChem

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1002/cssc.202402509· OSTI ID:2567572

Lower, Lillian ^[1]; Rowland, Steven M. ^[2]; Regula, Michael ^[3]; ^[2]; Combs, Zachary A. ^[3]; Park, Sunkyu ^[1]; Vries, Tijmen ^[4]; Vries, Ton ^[4]; ^[2]; ^[1]

North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC (United States)
National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
Birla Carbon, Marietta, GA (United States)
BioBTX, Groningen (Netherlands)

Battery-grade graphite and aviation fuel are traditionally produced from non-renewable, fossil carbon feedstocks and result in substantial greenhouse gas emissions. Biomass holds exciting potential as a renewable and sustainable feedstock for the production of graphite and aviation fuel, but challenges exist including the necessity of a catalyst when producing graphite and low selectivity when producing aviation fuel. A process to convert a biomass-derived feedstock into graphite without the use of a catalyst and fuels with high selectivity towards sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) is innovated. Heavy bio-oil undergoes a conversion process similar to the commercial production of synthetic graphite including coking at 500 °C, calcination at 1000 °C, and graphitization at 2800 °C. The resulting biographite exhibits excellent performance in lithium-ion battery configurations with specific capacity of ~330 mAh g⁻¹ and a 96.8 % capacity rebound after high rate cycling. The liquid hydrocarbon co-product from coking is suitable for hydrotreating into SAF. The aviation fuel fraction (70 wt % of the fuel produced) meets ASTM standards and is composed primarily of cycloalkanes (~80 wt %) which improves energy density compared to paraffins produced by other SAF pathways and may replace aromatics for elastomer swelling in traditional jet fuel with less soot production.

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Research Organization:: National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE; USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Office of Sustainable Transportation. Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO)

Grant/Contract Number:: AC36-08GO28308

OSTI ID:: 2567572

Alternate ID(s):: OSTI ID: 2551764

Report Number(s):: NREL/JA--5100-94174

Journal Information:: ChemSusChem, Journal Name: ChemSusChem Journal Issue: 10 Vol. 18; ISSN 1864-5631; ISSN 1864-564X

Publisher:: ChemPubSoc EuropeCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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