An overview of aqueous-phase catalytic processes for production of hydrogen and alkanes in a biorefinery

In this overview we discuss how aqueous-phase catalytic processes can be used to convert biomass into hydrogen and alkanes ranging from C, to C-15. Hydrogen can be produced by aqueous-phase reforming (APR) of biomass-derived oxygenated hydrocarbons at low temperatures (423538 K) in a single reactor over supported metal catalysts. Alkanes, ranging from C-1 to C-6 can be produced by aqueous-phase dehydration/hydrogenation (APD/H). This APD/H process involves a bi-functional pathway in which sorbitol (hydrogenated glucose) is repeatedly dehydrated by a solid acid (SiO2-Al2O3) or a mineral acid (HCl) catalyst and then hydrogenated on a metal catalyst (Pt or Pd). Liquid alkanes ranging from C-7 to C-15 can be produced from carbohydrates by combining the dehydration/hydrogenation process with an upstream aldol condensation step to form C-C bonds. In this case, the dehydration/hydrogenation step takes place over a bi-functional catalyst (4 wt.% Pt/SiO2-Al2O3) containing acid and metal sites in a specially designed four-phase reactor employing an aqueous inlet stream containing the large water-soluble organic reactant, a hexadecane alkane sweep stream, and a H-2 inlet gas stream. The aqueous organic reactant become more hydrophobic during dehydration/hydrogenation, and the hexadecane sweep stream removes these species from the catalyst as valuable products before they go on further to form coke. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.