(137a) Nano and Single-Atom Catalysts for Biomass Conversion to Renewable Liquid Fuels

Catalysts play a vital role in chemical and energy industries. Shifting fossil energy towards renewable fuels has created great demand for catalysts development. Nano-catalysts and single-atom catalysts (SACs) have unique catalytic properties for the rational design of new catalysts with high activity, selectivity, stability and most importantly better atom economy.

Nano-catalysts and SACs manufacturing is very challenging, especially for metals with agglomeration at higher temperature such as copper and ruthenium. Recently, we developed an inexpensive low-temperature plasma (LTP) device for the preparation of nano-catalysts and SACs, including bimetallic nano-catalysts. The bimetallic nano-catalyst Ru-Cu/zeolite and SACs Ru/Cu-zeolite catalyst were tested for lignin conversion. Hydrocarbon fuels were obtained with high yield of biomass conversion (over 85%).

The LTP technology greatly improves catalysts manufacturing efficiency and performance through innovations by 1) reducing catalyst calcinations and activation temperature and time, 2) minimizing metal agglomeration leading to more uniform distribution of bi/multi- metal particles, and 3) enhancing anchoring of metals on the support for more robust and longer catalyst life.

In summary, we will present a technology we are developing, which is promising and environmentally friendly LTP tool for the manufacturing of bimetallic nanocatalysts and SACs and can be used for biomass conversion.

Acknowledgement

This project was supported by DOE SBIR Project Contract Number DE-SC0022796.