Dual‐bed catalyst system for the direct synthesis of high density aviation fuel with cyclopentanone from lignocellulose

Abstract

In this article, we demonstrated an integrated process for the direct production of tri(cyclopentane) with cyclopentanone which can be obtained from lignocellulose. The reaction was carried out in a dual-bed continuous flow reactor. In the first bed, cyclopentanone was selectively converted to 2,5-dicyclopentylcyclopentanol over the Pd-MgAl-HT (hydrotalcite) catalyst. Under solvent-free and mild conditions (443 K, 0.1 MPa H 2 ), high carbon yield (81.2%) of 2,5-dicyclopentylcyclopentanol was achieved. Subsequently, the 2,5-dicyclopentylcyclopentanol was further hydrodeoxygenated to tri(cyclopentane) in the second bed. Among the investigated catalysts, the Ni-Hb-DP prepared by deposition-precipitation (DP) method exhibited the highest activity for the hydrodeoxygenation step. By using Pd-MgAl-HT as the first bed catalyst and Ni-Hb-DP as the second bed catalyst, tri(cyclopentane) was directly produced at high carbon yield (80.0%) with cyclopentanone as feedstock. This polycycloalkane has high density (0.91 kg/L) and can be used as additive to improve the density and volumetric heating value of bio-jet fuel.

Synthesis of Renewable Triketones, Diketones, and Jet‐Fuel Range Cycloalkanes with 5‐Hydroxymethylfurfural and Ketones

“…Preparation of catalysts : CaO was purchased from Aladdin Reagent Company. Before being used for the solvent‐free aldol condensation, CaO was calcined in N 2 flow at 873 K for 4 h. MgAl‐HT with a Mg/Al atomic ratio of 3 was prepared by the method reported in literature . Typically, Mg(NO 3 ) 2 ⋅6 H 2 O (53.8 g, 0.21 mol) and Al(NO 3 ) 3 ⋅9 H 2 O (26.3 g, 0.07 mol) were dissolved in deionized water (200 mL), and this mixture was marked as Solution‐A.…”

Advances in Nanocatalyst Design for Biofuel Production

“…High density tri(cyclopentane), ap olycycloalkane with three carbon rings, has been selectively synthesized from cyclopentanone in ad ual-bed catalyst system. [96] In the first bed, the trimerization of cyclopentanone was obtained under solventf ree conditions using MgAl-HT catalysts, obtaining up to 81.2 %carbon yield. The excellent performance of the catalystw as explained in terms of high surface area, combined with strong acidity and basicity.F urthermore, doping with noble metalss uch as Pt, Pd and Ru, significantly improved the catalytic activity.T he best activity was obtained with the Pd-doped catalyst, which is highly active in the selective hydrogenation of C=Cbond.…”

Zeolite catalytic synthesis of high‐performance jet‐fuel‐range spiro‐fuel by one‐pot Mannich–Diels–Alder reaction

“…Currently, as response to increasing concerns about depleting fossil reserves and environmental issues, converting renewable biomass into hydrocarbon fuels continues to draw tremendous attention . Many C–C coupling strategies have been proposed to upgrade the biomass derivatives to jet‐fuel range hydrocarbons, such as isomerization, aldol condensation, oligomerization, Diels–Alder addition, hydroxyalkylation/alkylation, reductive coupling/rearrangement reaction, Guerbet reaction, Robinson annulation, and so forth. However, most of the synthesized biofuels are linear hydrocarbons or branched monocycloalkanes with density <0.85 g ml −1 , which is much lower than that of petroleum‐based high‐density fuels.…”