The projected depletion of crude oil resources and the potential contribution of fossil energy resources to greenhouse gas emissions drew attention to developing technologies to produce renewable energy from biomass-derived resources. Though ethanol generated from renewable resources through fermentation is currently the dominant biofuel as a blend component for gasoline, several properties (e.g., low energy density and high water solubility) make ethanol undesirable as stand-alone transportation fuel and keep its composition in gasoline below 15 percent. In the near future, the production capacities of biomass-derived ethanol and other small oxygenates in United States of America are projected to rise beyond the blending needs due to the requirement to satisfy renewable fuel standards by producing 36 billion gallons/year of renewable fuel by the year 2022. Our study focused on examining the detailed reaction and deactivation mechanism for alcohols with different carbon numbers, acetic acid, acetaldehyde and ethyl acetate conversion over the HZSM-5 catalyst under moderate operating conditions. Conversion of these water soluble oxygenates to hydrocarbon products will enable water separation from the hydrocarbon products which is less energy intensive than first removing these water soluble oxygenates from water prior to hydrocarbon synthesis, potentially reducing overall processing costs.

Biomass derived small oxygenates to fuel range hydrocarbons over HZSM-5

248th National Meeting (2014)

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