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Renewable Fuels Produced From Biomass Pyrolysis Vapors: Catalysis And Reaction Engineering, David Pierce Gamliel

Doctoral Dissertations

At present, lignocellulosic biomass is the only renewable and available resource capable of supplanting fossil fuel resources. Fast pyrolysis is the conversion of biomass at elevated temperature, high heating rate and under inert atmosphere to produce bio-oil. This bio-oil is a blend of oxygenated hydrocarbons, which must be upgraded prior to use as a transportation fuel. The focus of this thesis is the investigation of bio-oil upgrading reaction pathways and catalysts for the production of biofuels.

There are two primary pathways for pyrolysis vapor upgrading: catalytic cracking and hydrodeoxygenation (HDO). During catalytic cracking, pyrolysis vapors react over the acid sites …