Wanjin Yu

One-step hydrogenation–esterification of furfural and acetic acid over bifunctional Pd catalysts for bio-oil upgrading

This contribution focuses on one-step hydrogenation-esterification (OHE) of furfural and acetic acid, which are difficult to treat and typically present in crude bio-oil, as a model reaction for bio-oil upgrading. A bifunctional catalyst is needed for OHE reaction. Among tested bifunctional catalysts, the 5%Pd/Al(2)(SiO(3))(3) shows the best catalytic performance. Compared to the physical mixture of 5%Pd/C+Al(2)(SiO(3))(3), there is a synergistic effect between metal sites and acid sites over 5%Pd/Al(2)(SiO(3))(3) for the OHE reaction. A moderate reaction condition would be required to obtain high yields of alcohol and ester along with lower byproduct yields. In this work, the optimum selectivity to desired products (alcohol and ester) of 66.4% is obtained, where the conversion of furfural is 56.9%. Other components, typically present in bio-oils, have little effects on the OHE of FAL and HAc. This OHE method is a promising route for efficient upgrading of bio-oil.

Hydrodeoxygenation of Bio-derived Phenol to Cyclohexane Fuel Catalyzed by Bifunctional Mesoporous Organic-inorganic Hybrids

In this work, mesoporous silica materials SBA-15 functionalized with propyl/ phenyl-sulfonic acid group were synthesized and loaded with Pt to form bifunctional catalysts. SAXRD, WAXRD, N2 adsorption-desorption, TEM techniques were used to characterize the above bifunctional catalysts. These bifunctional catalysts were applied to the reaction of hydrodeoxygenation (HDO) of bio-derived phenol (PhOH) to produce cyclohexane fuel and showed very good catalytic performances. There were strong synergies between the metal sites and the acid sites on the bifunctional catalysts. This reaction of phenol HDO provides a model system for the catalytic upgrading of biomass-derived fuel.