On-purpose production of propane fuel gas from the hydrothermal reactions of n-butanol over Pt/Al2O3 catalyst: A parametric and mechanistic study

Abstract

Production of components of liquefied petroleum gases (LPG) from biomass can become a sustainable pathway towards the defossilisation of off-grid locations for heating and transport applications. The reactions of butanol in the presence of 5 wt% Pt/Al2O3 across a set of reaction temperatures (200 °C to 300 °C), reaction times (up to 2 h), n-butanol concentrations (up to 30 wt%) and various feedstock-to-catalyst mass ratios were investigated and optimised. High conversion of n-butanol to gas products (99.91 wt%), high yield of propane (63.56 wt%) and propane hydrocarbon selectivity of 88.87 % were achieved in a batch reactor after 2 h of reaction at 300 °C. The formation of propane appeared to be from several mechanisms including decarbonylation, dehydration, C–O and C–C hydrogenolysis and hydrogenation. Significant yields of hydrogen and butane were formed, which may support the complex mechanistic pathways involved in n-butanol conversion. The 5 wt% Pt/Al2O3 catalyst was stable for up to two reaction cycles under the conditions investigated before mainly deactivating via hydrolysis of the alumina support and coke formation. This present work shows that n-butanol is a potential bio-derived feedstock to produce on-purpose biopropane fuel gas via catalytic hydrothermal processing.

Publication DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fuel.2024.131140
Divisions: College of Engineering & Physical Sciences > School of Infrastructure and Sustainable Engineering > Chemical Engineering & Applied Chemistry
Aston University (General)
Funding Information: The authors would like to thank EPSRC/BBSRC, and Biomass & Biorefinery Network (BBNet) (EP/S000771/1) for funding via the Business Interaction Vouchers for J.A.O. Additional funding from Calor Gas (UK) and SHV Energy, the Netherlands for J.A.O is grateful
Additional Information: Copyright © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Uncontrolled Keywords: Biopropane,Hydrogen,Biobutanol,Reaction mechanisms,Catalytic hydrothermal processing,Defossilisation,Energy Engineering and Power Technology,General Chemical Engineering,Fuel Technology,Organic Chemistry
Publication ISSN: 1873-7153
Data Access Statement: Data will be made available on request.
Last Modified: 02 Dec 2024 09:04
Date Deposited: 12 Feb 2024 15:09
Full Text Link:
Related URLs: https://www.sci ... 016236124002862 (Publisher URL)
http://www.scop ... tnerID=8YFLogxK (Scopus URL)
PURE Output Type: Article
Published Date: 2024-06-01
Published Online Date: 2024-02-09
Accepted Date: 2024-01-31
Authors: Diejomaoh, Onajite T. Abafe
Onwudili, Jude A. (ORCID Profile 0000-0002-5355-9970)
Simons, Keith E.
Maziero, Priscila

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