Bio-oils produced by pyrolysis or liquefaction of lignocellulosic biomass are promising alternative sources for the production of fuels. Bio-oils have a high oxygen content (45~50 wt%), which leads to undesired properties such as high viscosity, low thermal stability, low heating value and immiscibility with petroleum fractions. Converting bio-oils to fuels requires the reduction of the oxygen content. Hydrodeoxygenation (HDO) is regarded as the most promising route for this task. Metal phosphides exhibit not only high catalytic activity in hydrodesulfurization and hydrodenitrogenation, but Ni2P supported on MCM-41 showed also excellent activity in HDO of phenol. Since a large fraction of water is present in bio-oils and water is also the by-product in HDO of bio-oils, it is of significant importance to investigate the performance of nickel phosphides in aqueous phase HDO. Recently, we discovered that Ni2P was not stable in aqueous phase HDO of phenol whereas Ni3P was more active and significantly stable in phenol HDO both in aqueous phase and in organic phase. In addition, we introduced acid sites, which catalyzes the rate-determining dehydration in HDO network, by supporting Ni3P on HZSM-5 and HY zeolites and by adding CePO4 via a one-pot procedure. The prepared bi-functional catalysts exhibited high catalytic performance in HDO of phenol, catechol, and o-cresol. In addition, the kinetics of phenol and cyclohexanol were investigated.

Hydrodeoxygenation of phenols over Ni3P-based catalysts

2019 Spring National Meeting

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