Effects of Trace Contaminants on Catalytic Processing of Biomass-Derived Feedstocks

Abstract

Model compound testing was conducted in a batch reactor to evaluate the effects of trace contaminant components on catalytic hydrogenation of sugars. Trace components are potential catalyst poisons when processing biomass feedstocks to value-added chemical products. Trace components include inorganic elements such as alkali metals and alkaline earths, phosphorus, sulfur, aluminum, silicon, chloride, or transition metals. Protein components in biomass feedstocks can lead to formation of peptide fractions (from hydro-lysis) or ammonium ions (from more severe breakdown), both of which might interfere with catalysis. The batch reactor tests were performed in a 300-mL stirred autoclave, with multiple liquid samples withdrawn over the period of the experiment. Evaluation of these test results suggests that most of the catalyst inhibition is related to nitrogen-containing components.

Production of green aromatics and olefins by catalytic fast pyrolysis of wood sawdust

“…Biomass contains minerals that may poison zeolite catalysts during CFP. 30 Several researchers have studied the effect of salts on the primary pyrolysis reactions 31 and metal catalyzed hydrogenation reactions, 32 however, none of the previous researchers studied the effect of the minerals on zeolite catalyst stability. In the fixed bed reactor we study furan conversion over ZSM-5 and compare these results to CFP in a fluidized bed reactor.…”

Processing of Biobased Resources

“…Only small amounts of methane can be formed via the decarboxylation of acetic acid, without a catalyst. In principle, two versions of near-critical gasification are conducted: Elliott et al (2006Elliott et al ( , 2004 prefer subcritical conditions. The advantage is that salts are still soluble and the risk of plugging is low.…”

Techno‐economic analysis of multiple bio‐based routes to adipic acid

“…). As impurities present in the feedstock stream can poison metal catalysts, pure glucose made from corn via wet milling was assumed as feedstock for the production of adipic acid via the purely chemical route. We obtained the price of pure glucose as 0.30 ($/kg) through personal communication with the managers of corn wet milling plants in the Midwest region of the USA.…”

“…However, such conversion reduces the selectivity of the chemical reaction . Another disadvantage of the purely chemical catalytic route is that the use of expensive pure sugars is necessary for metal catalyst conversions, as the impure sugar stream poisons metal catalysts . The significant weaknesses of both chemical‐ and bio‐catalytic technologies can be overcome by deriving an intermediate chemical from glucose via microbial technology and then converting this mono‐ or bi‐functionalized biological intermediate to adipic acid using chemical catalysis .…”