George Huber, Chemical Engineering, University of Massachusetts-Amherst, 159 Goessmann Lab, 686 North Pleasant St., Amherst, MA 01003, Laurent Sauvanaud, Instituto de Tecnología Química, Valencia, Spain, Paul O’Connor, BIOeCON BV, Hogebrinkerweg 15e, Hoevelaken, 3871KM, Netherlands, and Avelino Corma, Instituto de Tecnología Química (UPV-CSIC), Avda. de los Naranjos s/n, Valencia, 46022, Spain.
One option for biofuel production is to use petroleum refinery technologies (i.e. catalytic cracking and hydrotreating) for biofuels production. We will discuss the feasibility of utilizing of the FCC process for biofuel and biochemical production. We have studied the reaction pathways for conversion of glycerol and sorbitol (representative biomass-derived feedstocks) over six different zeolite based catalysts. In this process, oxygen is removed from the feed as H2O, CO or CO2. Repeated dehydration and hydrogen transfer allows the production of olefins, paraffins, and coke. Aromatics (in yields up to 20 molar carbon %) are formed by Diels-alder and condensation reactions of olefins and dehydrated species. Glycerol can also be converted by FCC when co-fed with petroleum-derived products (i.e. vacuum gas-oil) without significantly altering the product selectivity. A modified FCC process can also be used to make valuable oxygenated intermediates (including acrolein, acetaldehyde) from biomass-derived feedstocks.