Conversion of sugar diacetyls to bio-hydrocarbons by the catalytic cracking in a fixed bed with fresh and deactivated Beta zeolite

Abstract

The conversion of biomass into fuel under typical refinery conditions is a promising solution to decrease carbon footprint. Herein we convert a representative compound of a new bio-petroleum, DX (1,2:3,5-di-O-isopropylidene-α-D-xylofuranose) mixture with n-hexane. Firstly fresh zeolites (Beta, ZSM-5 and USY) were explored. Beta zeolite showed a high performance in converting DX into hydrocarbons. Thus it was further modified by hydrothermal deactivation. This treatment reduced the acid site density of Beta, resulting in an improvement in aromatics, reducing gas 2-fold and coke 1-fold, and only leaving a small amount of oxygenates in the liquid fraction in the test with 20% DX.

Keywords

• Bio-hydrocarbons
• Sugar acetals
• Biomass
• Fixed bed
• Zeolite