Catalytic hydrotreating of biomass liquefaction products to produce hydrocarbon fuels: Interim report

Technical Report · Sat Mar 01 04:00:00 EST 1986

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/6912635· OSTI ID:6912635

Elliott, D C; Baker, E G

Research catalytic hydrotreatment of biomass liquefaction products to a gasoline has been technically demonstrated in a bench-scale continuous processing unit. This report describes the development of the chemistry needed for hydrotreatment of both high pressure and pyrolyzate biomass liquefaction products and outlines the important processing knowledge gained by the research. Catalyst identity is important in hydrotreatment of phenolics. Hydrogenation catalysts such as palladium, copper chromite, cobalt and nickel show activity with nickel being the most active. Major products include benzene, cyclohexane, and cyclohexanone. The hydrotreating catalysts cobalt-molybdenum, nickel-molybdenum and nickel-tungsten exhibit some activity when added to the reactor in the oxide form and show a great specificity for hydrodeoxygenation of phenol without saturation of the benzene product. The sulfide form of these catalysts is much more active than the oxide form and, in the case of the cobalt-molybdenum, much of the specificity for hydrodeoxygenation is retained. Substitution on the phenolic ring has only marginal effects on the hydrotreating reaction. However, the methoxy (OCH/sub 3/) substituent on the phenol ring is thermally unstable relative to other phenolics tested. The pyrolysis products dominate the product distribution when cobalt-molybdenum is used as the hydrotreating catalyst for methoxyphenol. The product from catalytic hydrotreatment of high-pressure biomass liquefaction products confirms the model compounds studies. Catalytic processing at 350 to 400/sup 0/C and 2000 psig with the sulfided cobalt-molybdenum or nickel-molybdenum catalyst produced a gasoline-like product composed of cyclic and aromatic compounds. Oxygen contents in products were in the range of 0 to 0.7 wt % and hydrogen to carbon atomic ratios ranged from 1.5 to 2.0. 46 refs., 10 figs., 21 tabs.

• Research Organization: Pacific Northwest Lab., Richland, WA (USA)
• DOE Contract Number: AC06-76RL01830
• OSTI ID: 6912635
• Report Number(s): PNL-5844; ON: DE87004217
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

09 BIOMASS FUELS
090121* -- Hydrocarbon Fuels-- Chemical Synthesis-- (1976-1989)
10 SYNTHETIC FUELS
140504 -- Solar Energy Conversion-- Biomass Production & Conversion-- (-1989)
AROMATICS
BENCH-SCALE EXPERIMENTS
BIOMASS
CATALYTIC EFFECTS
CATALYTIC HYDROSOLVATION PROCESS
CHEMICAL COMPOSITION
CHEMICAL REACTIONS
CHROMATOGRAPHY
COAL LIQUEFACTION
COBALT
COPPER COMPOUNDS
DATA
DECOMPOSITION
ELEMENTS
ENERGY SOURCES
EXPERIMENTAL DATA
FUELS
GAS CHROMATOGRAPHY
HIGH PRESSURE
HIGH TEMPERATURE
HYDROXY COMPOUNDS
INFORMATION
INFRARED SPECTRA
LIQUEFACTION
METALS
MOLYBDENUM
NICKEL
NUMERICAL DATA
OILS
ORGANIC COMPOUNDS
OTHER ORGANIC COMPOUNDS
PALLADIUM
PHENOLS
PLATINUM METALS
PYROLYSIS
PYROLYSIS PRODUCTS
PYROLYTIC OILS
REDUCTION
RENEWABLE ENERGY SOURCES
SEPARATION PROCESSES
SPECTRA
SYNTHETIC FUELS
THERMOCHEMICAL PROCESSES
TRANSITION ELEMENT COMPOUNDS
TRANSITION ELEMENTS
WOOD FUELS