Study on converting bio-oil obtained from waste microalgal biomass through hydrodeoxygenation over FeSAPO-5 catalyst

Abstract

This paper showed the study results in hydrodeoxygenation process (HDO). Guaiacol and bio-oil derived from pyrolysis of waste microalgal biomass were deoxygenated in an autoclave type reactor over FeSAPO-5 based catalyst – which has not been applied before for the same purpose. The FeSAPO-5 catalyst was prepared from SAPO-5 by isomorphic introduction of Fe3+ onto its framework. Guaiacol was used as sample for catalyst activity test followed by applying the catalyst in the HDO process of the bio-oil. A series of parameters were investigated including temperature, period of time, catalyst dosage and stirring speed, and the results revealed a range of suitable conditions for the HDO process such as 300oC, 2 hours, 5% in weight and 400 rounds per minute, respectively. Under these conditions, the guaiacol and bio-oil conversion reached 64.2% and 71.1% based on the converted guaiacol in the reaction and the total removal of heteroatoms before and after the HDO process, respectively. Techniques including XRD, SEM, EDX and GC-MS were employed in this study to characterize the catalyst, bio-oil and the hydrodeoxygenated products.