Renewable jet fuel is highly desirable for decoupling carbonization from growth in the aviation sector, and yet is currently vastly not cost-competitive with fossil-based jet fuel. Key to lowering costs and increasing supply are the development of hydrogen-free processes that use low-cost catalysts and minimize number of steps. Hydrogen-free upgrading of renewable alcohols to liquid hydrocarbons using supported catalysts is desirable for producing drop-in fuel substitutes, but direct and atom-economical processes are yet to be reported. Here we describe an innovative alcohol upgrading and deoxygenation cascade that meets these criteria, producing only water, hydrogen and carbon monoxide. This hydrogen-free cascade is catalyzed by multifunctional Pd catalysts, whose supports offer diverse acid-base properties: primarily basic MgO, acidic g-Al<sub>2</sub>O<sub>3</sub> and Mg-Al hydrotalcite (HT) with a combination of Lewis acidic and basic sites. The impact of support selection on activity and selectivity offers insights into the design principles for next-generation catalysts for this process and related transformations. The energy density of the mixture of products generated is consistent with the requirements of jet fuel, and the process is currently being explored for this application.

Direct conversion of renewable alcohols to jet-fuel grade mixture of long-chain hydrocarbons via tandem dehydrogenation-decarbonylative olefination

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ACS Fall 2022

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.