Biomass as a Source of Raw Materials—New process for obtaining alkanes from bio-oil

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/26737/home/press/200918press.html?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0

Press Release

Angewandte Chemie International Edition 2009, 48, 4047–4050
doi: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/resolvedoi?DOI=10.1002/anie.200900404">10.1002/anie.200900404

Nr. 18/2009

Biomass as a Source of Raw Materials

New process for obtaining alkanes from bio-oil

For the protection of the environment, and because of the limited amount of fossil fuels available, renewable resources, such as specially cultivated plants, wood scraps, and other plant waste, are becoming the focus of considerable attention. Processes such as pyrolysis or liquefaction allow the conversion of biomass into bio-oil, a highly promising renewable source of energy. A team of German and Chinese scientists led by Johannes A. Lercher at the Technical University of Munich has now developed a new catalytic process to convert components of bio-oil directly into alkanes and methanol. As reported in the journal Angewandte Chemie, the process is based on a “one-pot” reaction catalyzed by a precious metal on a carbon support combined with an inorganic acid.

Bio-oil is an aqueous, acidic, highly oxidized mixture. However, its high oxygen content and instability turn out to have a negative impact: bio-oil cannot be used directly as a liquid fuel. It would, however, be highly interesting as a source of basic raw materials if it were possible to convert it to alkanes. Alkanes, which are also commonly called paraffins, are saturated hydrocarbons; they are among the most important raw materials for chemical industry, and in particular as starting materials for the production of plastics. Furthermore, they are among the primary fuels in the world’s economy.

Bio-oil contains a phenolic fraction consisting of compounds with the main framework being an aromatic ring made of six carbon atoms with some hydroxy (-OH) groups attached. With the new process, the phenolic components of bio-oil can be converted with high selectivity to cycloalkanes (ring-shaped alkanes) and methanol. The researchers were able to demonstrate this with various model substances. As catalyst, they used palladium metal on a carbon support, with phosphoric acid as the proton source for the reaction.

The reaction is a “one-pot” reaction, meaning a one-step reaction whose partial reactions (hydrogenation, hydrolysis, and dehydration) occur in the same reactor, with no intermediate work-up. The secret is in the catalyst, which works on all of these different reactions. The end result is a mixture of various alkanes that separates into a second phase, making it easy to separate from the aqueous bio-oil phase. The new process is a practical approach for the direct use of bio-oil for the production of alkanes.

[excess_3]

1. is this good or bad?, in your opinion

most peole here seem to be against biamass as
a source of energy (not me).

objections seem to be ...

removal of nutrients from soil.
compressing the earth under the harvestors
trucks, road noise, etc
etc

[OKIsItJustMe]

2. In my opinion, this is useful knowledge

One of the things I hear people cry is, "When the oil runs out, there will be no plastics."

This would seem to indicate otherwise.

However, in my estimation, the amount of biomass that would be needed to produce plastics is minor compared to the amount needed to replace petroleum as a fuel. I don't believe that is practical or desirable.


When someone tells me about the prevalence of plastics, I say, OK, imagine all of the plastic you bought in a week was liquified, would that be more or less volume than the amount of gasoline you buy in a week? (How about the amount of heating oil that you burn in your furnace?)

[Turborama]

3. Good, if it's derived from algae

Algae oil makes all of those objections irrelevant.

[OKIsItJustMe]

6. However, algae oil does not appear to "scale" well

(It works reasonably well in small scale setups.)

[NNadir]

4. Oh good. Another plan to keep the car culture going until every last living thing

has been ground up and run through a gas tank.

Actually it's just a one pot Fischer Tropsch reaction. Big deal.

Fischer Tropsch is what all environmentalists must fight.

[madokie]

5. I have a question for you there

big guy. How do you get to work or to all those supposedly conferences you supposedly go to? Do you have something that you're keeping away from us, the whole world even? I know that you are the supposed inventor of a molten salt bed reactor or something like that and I must admit that is a little over my head but how do you get around? Do you tele-transport, walk, hell even run everywhere you go, whats the deal, nnadir??? Fess up man, even though you might not think it you are among friends here so you can talk to us, we'll listen :-)

Or is it you just protest too much? I'm betting on that being the case

Oh have a great day where ever you are today, it looks like rain all day for me, so thats going to kinda suck if you know what I mean ;-)

[OKIsItJustMe]

7. More

http://www.pnl.gov/news/release.asp?id=371