(237e) Upgrading Biomass-Derived Syngas to Mixed Hydrocarbons Over Three-Dimensionally Ordered Macroporous (3DOM) Iron Fischer-Tropsch Catalysts

Nowadays, our society relies heavily on traditional fossil fuels. It was estimated that the global energy need will continue rising due to world population explosion [1]. However, traditional fuels will soon deplete in the near future because of very limited reservation [2]. The extensive burning of traditional fossil fuels can produce and emit large amounts of greenhouse gas, such as carbon dioxide, into atmosphere and cause some other severe environmental issues. Thus, it is necessary and critical to find alternative solutions to suffice our energy needs [3-5].

      The potential route of renewable fuels production, such as gasoline, diesel and jet fuel, through Biomass to Liquid via Fischer-Tropsch Synthesis (BTL-FT) process has been gaining increasing interests from academia and industry because of its potential ability to produce carbon neutral and environmentally friendly clean fuels, such kind of fuels can help to meet the globally increasing energy demand and also to meet the stricter environmental regulations in the future [4, 6]. In the BTL-FT process biomass, such as woodchips, is firstly gasified with air, oxygen, and/or steam to produce raw bio-syngas. Then cleaning process is applied to the raw bio-syngas to remove contaminants like small char particles, ash, and tar. The cleaned bio-syngas is then conducted into catalytic reactor to perform FT synthesis to produce renewable liquid fuels [7, 8].

     Compared with the bulk transition-metal oxide catalysts, 3DOM catalysts possess unique physicochemical properties because of their uniform structure, interconnected porous channel, higher surface areas, and good catalytic performance [9-12], which make them show promising potentials in the Fischer-Tropsch synthesis. In order to investigate this little-studied area, we prepared and characterized series of 3DOM Fischer-Tropsch catalysts and utilize them to catalytically convert biomass-derived syngas into renewable liquid transportation fuels, such as gasoline, diesel and jet fuel.

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