As the biofuels industry broadens to include advanced liquid hydrocarbon fuels, understanding commercialization opportunities and leveraging existing infrastructure to reduce costs will become critical for the nationwide deployment. Conversion of wood and other agricultural residual feedstocks through a liquefaction method, such as fast pyrolysis or hydrothermal liquefaction, followed by a catalytic upgrading pathway is one of the most promising ways to produce fuels and chemicals. The resultant oil is a complex liquid mixture of paraffins, aromatics, oxygenates and other components. It goes without saying that a near complete analysis of these oils will aid the subsequent processing steps. Main differences between bio-derived oils and petroleum based oils include the high water, acid, and oxygen content of the former. Using current technologies we are able to characterize and account for the majority of the carbon containing species, but still striving to account for 35% unknowns. A better knowledge of oxygenates and other active species present in bio-oil is needed to properly evaluate bio-oil quality and may provide the key to solving processing issues encountered in the upgrading and refining. In this current climate of studying the possibility of integrating bio-oils as a co-feed in intermediate refinery streams, an intimate knowledge of species present in bio-oils and their abundance is a key research need. Another important factor in producing an infrastructure-ready fuel from biomass requires a better understanding of the chemical constituents of the gasoline, diesel and jet fuel fractions of the biofuel product. Determining the distribution of heteroatoms, especially O and S, impacts the acceptability of a distillate fraction within specific fuel specifications. We have developed a suite of analytical methods to characterize and describe bio-oils. The methods developed, lessons learnt, and application of these methods to different oils will be discussed.

Renewable fuels from biomass-derived feedstocks: Opportunities and challenges

255th National Meeting (2018)

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