Hydrodeoxygenation of guaiacol Part II: Support effect for CoMoS catalysts on HDO activity and selectivity

Bio-oils coming from ligno-cellulosic biomass are suitable material for the production of second generation biofuels. The oxygenated compounds have to be eliminated to confer good properties to these bio-oils and to permit their addition to traditional fuels. Hydrodeoxygenation (HDO) process which allows O-elimination by C-O bond cleavage under H-2 can be realized with the same type of catalysts as those used in HDS, supported CoMoS or NiMoS phases. In this work, the support effect associated with CoMoS catalysts has been investigated in guaiacol HDO reaction. Zirconia and titania supports have been compared with the traditional industrially used gamma-alumina and it appeared that zirconia as support gave very efficient conversion of guaiacol into deoxygenated hydrocarbons with a totally different selectivity. The difference in selectivity allowed us to propose a different reaction scheme compared to gamma-alumina and titania supported CoMoS. (c) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.