(506e) Upgrading of in-Situ Catalytic Fast Pyrolysis Bio-Oil to Hydrocarbon Fuels

Domestically, the US is challenged with improving the environment, energy security, and energy productivity, thus many efforts are concerted in utilizing biomass as a viable source of renewable liquid transportation fuels and contributing to a robust carbon-neutral energy production. However, achieving an economically competitive process is an ongoing challenge for current biomass upgrading technologies. Specifically, catalyst cost is one of the primary driver of thermochemical conversion cost associated with biomass upgrading to biofuels. The current state of technology for fast pyrolysis route includes a bio-oil stabilization step, which uses catalysts incorporating precious metals such as ruthenium to conduct hydrogenation of bio-oil at low temperatures. However, precious metal catalysts are orders of magnitude more expensive than conventional hydrotreating catalysts and very sensitive to sulfur contamination which limits there lifetime significantly. Catalytic fast pyrolysis (CFP) provides hope for a competitive production of an improved bio-oil. This bio-oil is also stable and higher in quality, and is also more readily hydroprocessed to liquid hydrocarbon fuels. Specifically, In-situ catalytic fast pyrolysis (in-situ CFP) uses a circulating fluidized-bed reactor which offers a straightforward, cost effective application of the technology. This presentation will report our recent research on in situ CFP and produced bio-oil hydrotreating. CFP bio-oils produced by using a low cost red mud catalyst (recovered waste from the Bayer process) and different reaction conditions from different biomass feedstocks were directly hydrotreated without a stabilization step. The impact of CFP parameters and feedstocks on hydrotreating will be elucidated. The overall biomass to fuel yield and cost information based on technoeconomic analysis will be reported. It showed that in situ CFP with an appropriate catalyst, such as red mud, has great potential for an efficient and economic viable route to convert biomass to fuels.