Step by step alkylation of acetone (A) with ethanol (E) in a ratio of 1 : 2 was investigated. A fixed bed flowthrough reactor system was used at a total pressure of 21 bar and in the temperature range of 150-350 C in inert He or a reducing H 2 medium. Following the hydrogen borrowing methodology, two types of catalysts were prepared; using neutral activated carbon (AC) and alkaline hydrotalcite (HT) supports, namely 5 wt% Pd/AC in the presence of alkaline additives (10, 20 and 30 wt% KOH or 20% K 3 PO 4 ); 9 wt% Cu/HT and 5 wt% Pd/HT. The catalysts were activated in a H 2 flow at 350 C. Different yields of mono-or dialkylated ketones were observed. In a hydrogen medium over the same catalyst systems the ketone products could be reduced to alcohols. In this study the Pd/HT catalyst seems to be the most promising for fuel production based on biomass fermentation.www.rsc.org/advances 99502 | RSC Adv., 2015, 5, 99502-99509 This journal isScheme 1 A basic approach to the transition-metal catalysed reaction network for alkylation of acetone with alcohols on the base of detected products in significant concentration. 99506 | RSC Adv., 2015, 5, 99502-99509This journal is

Over a two-stage flow-through catalytic system an advantageous mixture of various straight and branched alkanes can be obtained. In the second reactor the commercial NiMo/Al2O3 hydrodeoxygenating catalyst shows similar good properties as alkylating Pd-catalysts in the first stage.