Thesis
Aqueous phase catalytic processing of lignin into aromatics and hydrocarbons
Washington State University
Master of Science (MS), Washington State University
12/2017
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7273/000003956
Handle:
https://hdl.handle.net/2376/122233
Abstract
Biofuel production from biomass resources is one of the most promising approaches to resolving the fuel and environmental crisis faced by the world. Though biofuel production has already been industrialized, lignin, as one of the major energy bearing component in lignocellulosic biomass, is undervalued. Upgrading lignin to fuel products would significantly improve the total carbon use in biomass, enhance revenues, make biomass conversion more economically competitive, and support our country's mission of national energy security. Previous effort has succeeded in converting lignin into jet fuel range hydrocarbons in a single step reaction. To further understand the reaction pathway of such process, two important factors associated with product selectivity, zeolite type and hydrogen pressure, were examined. Both factors were found to be important in the cleavage of C-O-C bonds in lignin structures and the selective formation toward C12 to C18 hydrocarbon products. Zeolite alone was able to disrupt lignin into phenolic and aromatic monomers via acidolysis, achieving up to 85.6 % of carbon yield. The acidity of zeolites attributed to silica-alumina ratios and cations form affect the yield and selectivity toward different products. Zeolites with larger pore framework have a higher selectivity toward transalkylation reaction products. Hydrogen pressure is another crucial part of the reaction, and the total pressure of the reaction environment is more important than the hydrogen partial pressure for reliable formation of saturated and deoxygenated long chain hydrocarbons. In addition, such lignin derived biofuel was tested via several commercially incorporated methods and compared. Though the results were not close to conventional fuels, they were remarkably similar to some properties of high-temperature-resistant JP-900 military jet fuel.
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Details
- Title
- Aqueous phase catalytic processing of lignin into aromatics and hydrocarbons
- Creators
- Hao Ruan
- Contributors
- Bin Yang (Advisor) - Washington State University, Department of Biological Systems Engineering
- Awarding Institution
- Washington State University
- Academic Unit
- Department of Biological Systems Engineering
- Theses and Dissertations
- Master of Science (MS), Washington State University
- Publisher
- Washington State University
- Identifiers
- 99900890805001842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Thesis