Catalytic hydrothermal liquefaction of Camelina sativa residues for renewable biogasoline production

Abstract

ABSTRACT Camelina sativa plant residue was used as feedstock for the production of biogasoline (a mixture of paraffinic and olefinic hydrocarbons) by catalytic hydrothermal liquefaction (cHTL) process. The experiments were conducted at temperature range 200–375°C and pressure range 10–19 MPa. Molecular hydrogen was added for the hydro-deoxygenation processes. Various experiments were performed to understand the contributions of process parameters such as temperature, pressure, hydrogen, and retention time on reaction conversion and products distribution. This was followed by screening of different catalyst supports – γ-Al2O3, HZSM-5, SiO2-Al2O3, SBA-15, and Al2O3-HZSM-5 to understand their impacts as well as catalytic activities. The Al2O3/HZSM-5 exhibited the best properties and was impregnated with a varying range of cobalt metal for the HTL of Camelina sativa. The 5%Co/γ-Al2O3-HZSM-5 catalyst exhibited highest liquefaction conversion (79%) and biogasoline yield (43%) at optimized reaction conditions due to the presence of strong brønsted acidity on the catalyst were that enhanced both the hydrocarbon cracking and hydrogenation leading to the production of low boiling point and low molecular weight hydrocarbon within the boiling point range of fossil gasoline. Across all the data point used in the work, the average deviation was within ± 3%, these are mostly indicated by the error bars.