The main catalytic challenges in GTL (gas-to-liquids) processes

There is a pressing need for renewable and optimal use of resources towards sustainable primary production and processing systems worldwide. Current technologies for food and feedstock production are held accountable for several environmental problems, such as for instance soil and water contamination due to the use of hazardous substances, generation of toxic products and even excess of biomass that is considered waste. To minimize or solve these questions in order to produce an adequate quantity of reliable and healthy food, fibers and other products and energy, new paradigms focusing on sustainable agriculture, bio-based industries or biorefineries have emerged over the last decades. Biorefineries integrate sustainable and environmentally friendly concepts of Green Chemistry with intelligent and integrated farming processes, optimizing the agricultural production. Thermochemical and biochemical processes are excellent alternatives for the production of new classes of renewable biofuels and feedstock, showing relatively small impact on greenhouse gas emissions and important pathways to obtain platform chemicals. This review discusses the current and incipient technological developments for using biomass to generate bio-based chemicals over the last decade, focusing on Green Chemistry concepts towards sustainable agriculture and processing models in Brazil.

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“…For instance, Fischer-Tropsch synthesis (FTS) involves diverse complex reactions to produce low-molecular-weight hydrocarbons from syngas [59].…”

Section: Other Alternative Biofuelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Green chemistry, sustainable agriculture and processing systems: a Brazilian overview

Perlatti

Forim

Zuin

2014

Chem. Biol. Technol. Agric.

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“…According to the literature, [6,12,37,41,44,45] the (present) best formulation catalyst for lower temperature Fischer Tropsch synthesis catalyst is routinely a ruthenium-promoted cobalt and iron catalyst (here (Ru/Co/Fe) in Fig. 2) for the production of Gas-to-Liquid or Coal-toLiquid fuels.…”

Section: The Catalyst Sensitivity Index: a Completementioning

confidence: 99%

The Catalyst Selectivity Index (CSI): A Framework and Metric to Assess the Impact of Catalyst Efficiency Enhancements upon Energy and CO2 Footprints

et al. 2015

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Heterogeneous catalysts are not only a venerable part of our chemical and industrial heritage, but they also occupy a pivotal, central role in the advancement of modern chemistry, chemical processes and chemical technologies. The broad field of catalysis has also emerged as a critical, enabling science and technology in the modern development of ''Green Chemistry'', with the avowed aim of achieving green and sustainable processes. Thus a widely utilized metric, the environmental E factor-characterizing the waste-to-product ratio for a chemical industrial processpermits one to assess the potential deleterious environmental impact of an entire chemical process in terms of excessive solvent usage. As the many (and entirely reasonable) societal pressures grow, requiring chemists and chemical engineers not only to develop manufacturing processes using new sources of energy, but also to decrease the energy/carbon footprint of existing chemical processes, these issues become ever more pressing. On that road to a green and more sustainable future for chemistry and energy, we note that, as far as we are aware, little effort has been directed towards a direct evaluation of the quantitative impacts that advances or improvements in a catalyst's performance or efficiency would have on the overall energy or carbon (CO 2 ) footprint balance and corresponding greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of chemical processes and manufacturing technologies. Therefore, this present research was motivated by the premise that the sustainability impact of advances in catalysis science and technology, especially heterogeneous catalysis-the core of large-scale manufacturing processes-must move from a qualitative to a more quantitative form of assessment. This, then, is the exciting challenge of developing a new paradigm for catalysis science which embodies-in a truly quantitative form-its impact on sustainability in chemical, industrial processes. Towards that goal, we present here the concept, definition, design and development of what we term the Catalyst Sensitivity Index (CSI) to provide a measurable index as to how efficiency or performance enhancements of a heterogeneous catalyst will directly impact upon the fossil energy consumption and GHG emissions balance across several prototypical fuel production and conversion technologies, e.g. hydrocarbon fuels synthesized using algae-tobiodiesel, algae-to-jet biofuel, coal-to-liquid and gas-to-liquid processes, together with fuel upgrading processes using fluidized catalytic cracking of heavy oil, hydrocracking of heavy oil and also the production of hydrogen from steam methane reforming. Traditionally, the performance of a catalyst is defined by a combination of its activity or efficiency (its turnover frequency), its selectivity and stability (its turnover number), all of which are direct manifestations of the intrinsic physicochemical properties of the heterogeneous catalyst itself under specific working conditions. We will, of course, retain these definitions of the catalytic process, ...

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“…In microscale reactors, it is natural to employ a catalytic wall because the packing of catalyst particles is difficult. Also, in some large systems involving the GTL process, a channel with a catalytic wall is desirable to enhance heat transfer [18]. In these applications, it is difficult to find general principles, as was the case in our previous study [19].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

The limiting process in steam methane reforming with gas diffusion into a porous catalytic wall in a flow reactor

Saito

Kojima

Yoshida

2015

International Journal of Hydrogen Energy

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The main catalytic challenges in GTL (gas-to-liquids) processes

Cited by 96 publications

References 123 publications

Green chemistry, sustainable agriculture and processing systems: a Brazilian overview

Green chemistry, sustainable agriculture and processing systems: a Brazilian overview

The Catalyst Selectivity Index (CSI): A Framework and Metric to Assess the Impact of Catalyst Efficiency Enhancements upon Energy and CO2 Footprints

The limiting process in steam methane reforming with gas diffusion into a porous catalytic wall in a flow reactor

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