Microalgae are promising renewable feedstocks for the production of fuels and commodity chemicals. While microalgae can be directly converted to syngas or fuels, their natural intricacy makes them ideal sources of several complex and useful chemicals, provided the availability of proper refining tools. Herein we present the design and application of multifunctional nanostructured materials capable of selectively isolating free fatty acids from crude microalgal oil and catalyzing their hydrogenation to diesel range hydrocarbons. Importantly, these materials do not remove other valuable chemicals from the oil, but leave them behind for downstream processing. These hybrid materials include an organic adsorbent and an inorganic nanoparticle catalyst, both supported on high-surface mesoporous particles. Incorporation of the organic adsorbent to the catalytic material results in a synergistic effect that shifts the selectivity of the reaction from cracking to decarbonylation/hydrodeoxygenation. Thus, the process is twofold selective, as it involves the selective separation of free fatty acids and their selective conversion into hydrocarbons with preserved chain lengths. In addition, we report how the selectivity of fatty acid hydrogenation can be controlled by proper selection and/or synergistic combination of earth-abundant metal catalysts, which ultimately constitute inexpensive alternatives to noble metal hydroprocessing catalysts.

Selective hydroprocessing of fatty acid rich feedstocks using multifunctional non-sulfided earth-abundant metal catalysts

252nd National Meeting (2016)

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