Journal of Fundamentals of Renewable Energy and Applications
Open Access

Making a bridge between biomass and hydrocarbon in a standard refinery

2^nd Euro Global Summit and Expo on BIOMASS AND BIOENERGY

October 12-13, 2017 London, UK

Joana Pinto, Leandro Soter de Mariz e Miranda1and Marcelo Maciel Pereira

Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Scientific Tracks Abstracts: J Fundam Renewable Energy Appl

Abstract :

A conventional refinery is based on mature processes that obtain standard products from a large variety of non- renewable feeds. Despite enormous benefits to modern civilization, the adopted production and consumption patterns paradoxically put us at environmental risk. Therefore it is mandatory a paradigm shift to decrease the carbon footprint without reducing the energy access to people. Biomass is composed of functionalized biopolymers (lignin-cellulose) based on sugars- and phenol-derivatives. On the other hand, refinery processes have been designed to operate on poorly reactive compounds like hydrocarbons. The bridge between these two remarkable worlds was archived in two steps: 1- by transforming the biomass into a bio-crude, which was produced by ketalyzation in acetone and acetylation reactions in acetic anhydride under mild temperature conditions (around 100oC). This black bio-crude (density around 1.0-1.3 gmL-1 and CHO composition of 60, 8 and 32 respectively) is chemically distinct of any other bio-feed so far. 2 -The transformation of bio-crude and model compounds by the fluid catalytic cracking and hydrotreatment into monoaromatic and saturated hydrocarbons respectively. Herein the results of the fluidized bed pilot plant in laboratory scale of both model test and bio-crude are presented. For instance, a representative ketal-derivative, 1,2:5,6-di-O- isopropylidene-�?±-Dglucofuranose (DX) mixture up to 50% in n-hexane achieved three main goals: small coke formation, remarkable selectivity to hydrocarbons and slight improvement in n-hexane conversion as presented in Table 1. Moreover, no oxygenated compounds were observed in the liquid phase, thus resulting in a drop-in fraction in the fuel pool. The bio-base economy derived from this concept fits the requirements to be produced, transported and processed like wise to the up- to downstream in the oil industry. Finally, as a consequence the bio-crude behaves like hydrocarbons under realistic refinery process, oil could be partially substituted by bio-crude or, in the future; an entirely green refinery could operate using renewable feeds.

Biography :

Joana Pinto is a Phd Student at the Chemistry Institute of Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ - Brazil). She obtained the MSc in Chemical Engineering at University of Lisbon in IST (Instituto Superior Técnico). Joana’s Phd thesis studies the biomass (sugar cane bagasse) conversion into aromatic compounds under realistic standard refinery conditions (fluid catalytic cracking process).