Biofuels (solid, liquid or gaseous fuels produced from biomass) have emerged as one of the most promising source of energy for the foreseeable future, being the most sustainable way to limit greenhouse gas emissions.
Besides the advantages, the production and use of biofuels have several problems to be solved. The production costs and the energy consumption are too high to obtain a final product that can act as a substitute to fossil fuels, because of the low energy content of the biomass and the low efficiency of the biofuel production processes.
The goal of this research project is to produce a high grade bio-oil from hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) of oak wood using metal catalysts. We expect to obtain high yield of high quality bio oil, with low oxygen content. Liquid biofuels produced by termochemical processes usually present high oxygen content which implies low calorific value, low chemical stability and high viscosity. It is therefore of fundamental importance to overcome this issue; one of the most pursued way is to perform an up-grading of the produced bio-oil. The up-grading processes are very expensive in terms of energy consumption, high hydrogen pressure are required. Hydrothermal liquefaction is a termochemical process operating at medium temperature (280-400°C) and high pressure (100-200 bar) in which biomass decomposes in presence of water into char, bio-oil, gas, and water soluble oirganic compounds.
In our process we expect to perform a partial up-grading of the bio-oil in the production step using suitable catalysts. The development of heterogerogeneous metal catalysts will be one of the scope of this proposal. We will test metal, such as Fe, Co and Ni, which in HTL condition should be oxidized and produce hydrogen in the reacting mass and which are recognized to be hydrogenation catalysts. Furthermore, these metals present magnetical properties leading to an easy recovery and thus to a subsequent re-use.
