CONDENSED-PHASE CATALYSIS FOR ALTERNATIVE FUELS PRODUCTION

Chuhua Jia

doi:10.7273/000002412

The widespread use of renewable fuels faces challenges from biomass availability and production cost. The dissertation aims to develop a condensed-phase catalytic process to realize the efficient production of cost-competitive alternative diesel and aviation fuels from biomass and plastic waste. Herein a liquid biphasic tandem catalytic process was developed to convert a variety of fatty acids, triglycerides, and oilseed biocrude oil to the jet-fuel- and diesel- range paraffinic hydrocarbon fuel components at relatively mild conditions. Both the experimental studies and MD simulations were performed to elucidate the synergistic effects of water and various organic solvents, which stabilize the carboxylate group and the hydrophobic hydrocarbon tail in a fatty acid molecule, respectively, and improve the kinetic rates and the selectivity. Moreover, the synergistic effect between the Ru nanoparticle and the composite C-TiO2 support accelerated the deoxygenation reaction rate, where Ru catalyzes the deoxygenation reaction and support adsorbs the carboxyl group in fatty acids through chemisorption and oxygen vacancies. The existence of oxygen vacancies in the titania was found to play an important role in the deoxygenation reaction in the biTCP. Both the quantity and distribution of oxygen vacancies in the titania can affect the catalytic performance. In order to further increasing the efficiency, the genetic strategy was applied to produce camelina oil that contains medium-chain fatty acids to realize the efficient production of renewable jet fuel by avoiding severe cracking caused by the high reaction temperature. Furthermore, plastic waste was proved to be a feasible resource for the production of cost-competitive alternative aviation fuel to alleviate the shortage of biomass feedstock. The efficient liquid-phase hydrogenolysis process with the heterogeneous Ru/C catalyst was developed for selective depolymerization of waste HDPE plastic under mild conditions. Solvents can profoundly affect the depolymerization reaction kinetics and product selectivity by changing the conformation of the PE polymer. The work demonstrated that the condensed-phase catalytic process is a promising approach for the efficient conversion of biomass and plastic waste to alternative fuels, providing insights into the interaction among the substrate molecules, catalyst, and solvent properties.

CONDENSED-PHASE CATALYSIS FOR ALTERNATIVE FUELS PRODUCTION

Files and links (1)

Abstract

Metrics

Details