Catalytic biofuel production from pomace-biooil based model mixture


Thesis Type: Postgraduate

Institution Of The Thesis: Gazi University, Fen Bilimleri Enstitüsü, Turkey

Approval Date: 2023

Thesis Language: Turkish

Student: Can GÜVENÇ

Principal Supervisor (For Co-Supervisor Theses): Nuray Oktar

Co-Supervisor: Levent Değirmenci

Abstract:

With the rapidly increasing population, the development of industry and technology, the need for energy is increasing day by day. There is a need for clean and renewable energy sources due to the increasing demand for fossil fuels, the decrease in their reserves and the environmental effects of increasing CO2 emissions. Since the nitrogen, sulfur and ash content of biomass energy is quite low, it is an environmentally friendly source. Bio-oil obtained from biomass by thermal conversion methods has properties close to crude oil in terms of physical properties. However, crude oil contains 1% oxygen by mass, while this ratio is between 28-40% in bio-oil. In order to improve the fuel properties of bio-oil, it is aimed to synthesize catalysts that are resistant to coke formation, stable and have high catalytic activity to be used in the reaction system. As a result of the catalytic decomposition reactions of acetic acid, hydroxypropanone, formic acid and co-reactant ethanol representing the pomace selected as a biomass source, it is aimed to obtain biofuel with high efficiency. The control of the bio-fuel production system and the optimum reaction conditions were found to be 400oC under 1 atm pressure and the E/R ratio of 70 in the studies carried out with the commercial HZSM-5 catalyst. γ-Al2O3 supported catalysts containing Ni, Ta, Zr, Ga at 1.5 and 10% by mass and silica microsphere catalysts containing Zr, Co were prepared. In the study, XRD, N2 adsorption-desorption, SEM, EDS, FTIR, DRIFTS, XANES and TGA-DTA analyzes were performed to determine the physical and chemical properties of the synthesized catalysts. The highest conversion was 92% and the highest iso-paraffin selectivity of 80.96% was observed in the reactions performed with 10Zr@ɣ-Al2O3 catalyst. Additions of zirconium and tantalum to the catalysts decreased the rate of coke deposited on the catalyst surface. The lowest coke ratio was determined as 1.15% in the 10Zr-SMK catalyst prepared by the microencapsulation method. Bio-fuel was obtained with high conversion and selectivity from the model component representing olive pomace as a bio-oil source.

Key Words : Bio-oil, Bio-fuel, Silica, Alumina, Microsphere