(50d) Direct Catalytic Conversion of Lignocellulosic Biomass into Liquid Paraffins and Aromatics

Today, gasoline is the major economic driver for petroleum refineries and its production accounts for nearly 20% of the total volume of products derived from a barrel of crude oil. However, the market share occupied by gasoline consumption is expected to decline 1% annually through 2050 and the petrochemical industry will become more dependent on the production of non-combustible petrochemicals, jet fuel and marine diesel due to increased car fuel efficiency, emerging electric and hydrogen fuel cell vehicle utilization. Thus, according to the BP Energy Outlook 2020, biofuels are expected to play a major role for the aviation and marine industries, but they also can play a role in accelerating the displacement of petroleum-based gasoline and non-combustible fuels, which could be substituted by the exact bio-based equivalents if there are biomass conversion technologies that enable such potential. Herein, a zeolite-supported metal catalyst in a presence of a hydrocarbon solvent was used to directly convert lignocellulosic biomass into a range of gaseous and liquid hydrocarbons at 280 Celsius via hydrodeoxygenation. Biomass conversion and carbon yields higher than 90% were obtained with a solvent to biomass ratio of 3:1 and 8h of residence time. C5-C7 alkanes (61% of total carbon) and C3-C4 alkanes (14% of total carbon) along with lower level of aromatics (10% of total carbon) were the main products generated. The produced alkanes can be fractionated and used directly in many applications today or subjected to further oxidative coupling followed by oligomerization to produce carbon range jet fuel and diesel.