4th International Conference on Applied Engineering and Natural Sciences ICAENS 2022, Konya, Türkiye, 10 - 13 Kasım 2022, ss.94
The energy demand is increasing due to increasing human population and economic growth in
developed countries. Fossil fuels comprise almost 80 per cent of current primary energy demand. When fossil
fuels are burned, they release large amounts of carbon dioxide, known as greenhouse gas. Due to this reason,
environmentally friendly and renewable energy sources are preferred to be used in these days. Biomass is
one of the most sustainable sources in nature[1]. Nowadays, alternative fuels derived from biomass have
recently gained an importance. Biomass has low SO2 and NOx emissions comparison with fossil fuels.
Moreover, bio-oil obtained from biomass by thermal conversion methods has similar physical properties to
crude oil. Crude oil contains 1% oxygen by mass, while this ratio is between 28-40% in bio-oil. Due to the
high oxygen content, bio-oil cannot be used directly in today's vehicles. Therefore, the fuel properties of
bio-oil should be upgraded with catalytic decomposition reactions in the presence of zeolites. The
upgrading reaction is carried out under atmospheric pressure conditions with catalysts with high surface
acidity[2]. The mesoporous HZSM-5 and mesoporous alumina catalysts show higher surface acidity with
a high surface area. In this study, bio-oil model component was used to represent the pomace (biomass
source). Bio-oil upgrading reactions were carried out under 400 oC reaction temperature and 1 atm reaction
pressure, and the results revealed that HZSM-5 catalyst showed the highest biofuel selectivity (%17) and
bio-oil conversion(%78).