SCHEDULED MAINTENANCE
Stabilization of the aqueous phase fraction of pine wood bio-oil using zirconia-supported Fe/Cu/Pd nano-catalysts under mild conditions†
*abc
Michela
Signoretto,
d
Gert H.
ten Brink,
c
Hero Jan
Heeres
c
and
Aimaro
Sanna
*b
Abstract
Bio-oil has high potential for fuel and chemical production by hydroprocessing, but its high acidity and oxygen level require a stabilization stage before its upgrading. The hydrogenation of the water fraction of bio-oil (WBO) was studied in the presence of mono- and bimetallic catalysts (Cu, Fe, Pd, PdCu and PdFe) on a zirconia support at 50 bar H2 at 100 °C. 96% of C present in the liquid phase was retained after a reaction time of 240 minutes using the PdFe bi-metallic catalyst without a decrease in catalytic activity. Fe/ZrO2 and FePd/ZrO2 were able to reduce WBO acids (−45%) and levoglucosan (−50%) and maintain their activity for the whole 360 min, while the Pd, Cu and PdCu based catalysts deactivated relatively fast. PdFe/ZrO2 was the catalyst that produced more cyclohexanes (after 240 min), suggesting that Fe promoted by Pd is active for the hydrogenation of C![[double bond, length as m-dash]](https://www.rsc.org/images/entities/char_e001.gif)
C bonds, leading to the saturation of aromatic rings at low temperature. The LTMP hydrogenation activity of PdFe/ZrO2 can be linked to the good dispersion of Fe and Pd nanoparticles of a few nm size and Pd–Fe–ZrO2 synergistic activity. The results suggest that particularly PdFe on ZrO2 is an attractive catalyst for the stabilization of WBO at low temperatures.
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