Catalysis Meets Nonthermal Separation for the Production of (Alkyl)phenols and Hydrocarbons from Pyrolysis Oil

Abstract

A simple and efficient hydrodeoxygenation strategy is described to selectively generate and separate high-value alkylphenols from pyrolysis bio-oil, produced directly from lignocellulosic biomass. The overall process is efficient and only requires low pressures of hydrogen gas (5 bar). Initially, an investigation using model compounds indicates that MoC /C is a promising catalyst for targeted hydrodeoxygenation, enabling selective retention of the desired Ar-OH substituents. By applying this procedure to pyrolysis bio-oil, the primary products (phenol/4-alkylphenols and hydrocarbons) are easily separable from each other by short-path column chromatography, serving as potential valuable feedstocks for industry. The strategy requires no prior fractionation of the lignocellulosic biomass, no further synthetic steps, and no input of additional (e.g., petrochemical) platform molecules.

One‐step Modification of Active Sites and Support in Ni/Al2O3 Catalyst for Hydrodeoxygenation of Lignin‐derived Diphenyl Ether

“…The conversion of DPE and selectivity to different product are shown in Table S2. The Ni/20NbAC, MoC x /C, and Pt/20Nb−Al 2 O 3 show a high selectivity to BEN at low H 2 pressure. While the selectivity to O‐free product is much lower than the Ni 2 Si/SiO 2 ‐Al 2 O 3 catalysts.…”

Geminal Coordinatively Unsaturated Sites on MOF‐808 for the Selective Uptake of Phenolics from a Real Bio‐Oil Mixture

“…In this sense, phenolic compounds are high value‐added target compounds, which can be recovered from bio‐oil and have many industrial applications, for example, in the production of non‐ionic surfactants, lubricant additives, phenolic resins, polymer additives, and agrochemicals . At present, well‐established routes to obtain phenols from biomass either involve fractionation of the lignocellulose followed by depolymerization of the lignin or pyrolysis of the whole biomass followed by separation of the complex mixtures by using solvent extraction . However, in both processes, the associated cost of separation and purification is high…”

Tungsten‐Based Bimetallic Catalysts for Selective Cleavage of Lignin C−O Bonds

“…Unlike the aforementioned four solvents, alkanes show no Lewis basicity, hence the strong interaction with Ru–W/AC is not existent in such kind of solvents; moreover, n ‐hexane and cyclohexane are not hydrogen‐donor solvents, which thus avoids overhydrogenation of the aromatic ring. These features make n ‐hexane and cyclohexane excellent solvents for Ru–W/AC‐catalyzed hydrogenolysis of BPE …”