Theses and Dissertations Collection

Fast pyrolysis is a process can convert woody biomass to a crude bio-oil (pyrolysis oil) However, some of these compounds contribute to bio-oil shelf life instability and difficulty in refining. Catalytic hydrodeoxygenation (HDO) of the bio-oil can upgrade the bio-oil into transportation fuels. Therefore, nickel (Ni) and ruthenium (Ru) catalysts supporting on a novel nanomaterial, silica nanospring (NS) showed the best performance for HDO of phenol. In terms of bio-oil hydrotreatment, the bio-oil was fractionated by phase separation by addition of water to obtain a water-insoluble (WIS) and water-soluble (WS) fractions from the bio-oil. The WS of bio-oil can be upgraded into cycloalkanes of 30% wt. and alcohols of 18% wt. over Ni(65%)/SiO2-Al2O3 catalyst. The WIS of bio-oil had been effectively cracked in methanol over Ni(65%)/SiO2-Al2O3 catalyst. A further step of HDO on the cracked oil had successfully deoxygenated the phenolics into cycloalkanes.