(136b) Systematic Evaluation of Bio-Oil Hydrotreating Catalysts

Though many studies of bio-oil upgrading with various noble and non-noble metal hydrotreating catalysts have been reported in the literature, there isn't a clear picture of the comparative performance of these catalysts for either common model bio-oil substrates or bio-oil samples. In this talk, we will present results of the systematic evaluation of the performances of various types of mono-metallic and multi-metallic catalysts with respect to hydrodeoxygenation of model bio-oil compounds such as aliphatic acids, furfurals and phenolic compounds, as well as bio-oil samples themselves. The evaluated catalysts include Pd/C, Ru/C, Pt/C mono-metallic catalysts and Pd-Re/C, Ru-Re/C multi-metallic catalysts, and the performance measures include hydrogen uptake rates, yields of liquid and gas samples along with their compositions, and catalyst stability to deactivation based on recycle studies and physical property measurements. The availability of such comprehensive information is essential for rational catalyst design/selection and process development. In addition to conventional slurry reactor studies, we will also present hydrodeoxygenation of some of these substrates using supercritical reaction media that we recently reported.