Projects & Articles
Topic: Investigation of the key factors affecting hydrogenation / deoxygenation of mixtures of oxygenates
Funding: Czech Science Foundation
Duration: 2022 - 2024
Abstract: The project deals with hydrogenation/deoxygenation of model furanic and phenolic compounds in the gas phase over heterogeneous supported metallic catalysts. The focus is on the description of the key parameters that affect hydrogenation/deoxygenation of mixtures of oxygenated compounds and on the elucidation of the origin of differences in the catalytic activity when hydrogenating/deoxygenating individual oxygenates or their mixtures. Apart from the activity and selectivity of catalysts, the influence of catalyst composition and properties (e.g. hydrogenation power and oxophilicity) on activity/selectivity of catalysts and on adsorption/desorption of oxygenates (individual compounds as well as mixtures) on these catalysts will be investigated. The project will contribute to a better understanding of hydrogenation/deoxygenation of mixtures of furanics and phenolics that is important for the future valorization of biomass-derived oxygenates.
Topic: Controlling reaction pathways in hydrogenation of sugar-derived oxygenates by catalyst design – COCAIN
Funding: Czech Science Foundation
Duration: 2021 - 2024
Abstract: Selective transformation of biomass-derived platform chemicals, such as 5-hydroxymethylfurfural and levulinic acid, may afford high-value-added chemicals for future biorefinery schemes and make the chemical industry more sustainable. However, the methods or catalysts reported so far yield poor selectivity towards the interesting/target products. To fully control these transformations, it is essential not only to describe the reaction pathways but to understand the role of specific functionalities of the heterogeneous catalysts on the course of the reactions and to combine intimately appropriate functionalities into advanced multifunctional catalysts to selectively steer the transformation to desired products. The main scientific goal of the project is to understand how the key catalyst-design parameters including the metal nanoparticle size and promotion as well as the support characteristics affect the individual reaction rates and, hence, the selectivity to specific products in 5-hydroxymethylfurfural conversion.
Project partners: Lodz University of Technology, Poland
Topic: Simultaneous deoxygenation of acids and phenols in pyrolyzed wastewater sludges
Funding: Czech Science Foundation - 20-28086J
Duration: 2020 - 2022
Goal: The main goal of the project is to describe the fundamental aspects of the mutual inhibition effects in the concurrent hydrodeoxygenation of phenols and fatty acids and to elucidate the relationship between the performance of catalysts and their properties.
Abstract: The project is focused on understanding of the mutual inhibition effects during deoxygenation of mixtures consisting of different types of oxygenates (fatty acids and phenols). It deals with design and investigation of suitable bifunctional catalysts attempting to describe the relationships between catalyst synthesis parameters and the resulting catalyst properties. The performance of the catalysts will be studied in deoxygenation of mixtures of fatty acid and phenols to understand the influence of one oxygenate type on the other during their deoxygenation. This information will help improving the catalyst design. In addition, the plausible inhibition effect of nitrogen containing compounds will be investigated as well. The obtained knowledge can contribute to progress in deoxygenation of complex feedstocks such as pyrolysis oils from wastewater sludges.
Project partners: Boreskov Institute of Catalysis, Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk, Russian Federation
Topic: Cooperative R&D of innovative catalytic upgrading and technology for efficient transformation of vegetable oil to clean fuels
Funding: Ministry of Education and Youth of the Czech Republic – LTACH19017
Duration: 2019-2021
Goal: The main goal of the project is to develop a catalytic system that will transform vegetable oils into advanced biofuels under more favorable reaction conditions than those used in the current technologies. The goal of the project consists of (i) catalyst development for hydrogenolysis of triglycerides into related fatty alcohols, (ii) catalyst development of a bifunctional hydroisomerization catalyst for converting the fatty alcohols to iso-alkanes and (iii) integrating both catalytic strategies into an integrated flexible catalytic system.
Project partners: Ranido, s.r.o., Heilongjiang University, Daicin Center of Petrochina
Articles
Goepel, M., Ramos, R., Gläser, R., Kubička, D. Novel polymer-silica composite-based bifunctional catalysts for hydrodeoxygenation of 4-(2-Furyl)-3-Buten-2-One as model substance for furfural-acetone aldol condensation products (2019) Applied Sciences (Switzerland), 9 (12), 2438.
Ramos, R., Tišler, Z., Kikhtyanin, O., Kubička, D. Solvent effects in hydrodeoxygenation of furfural-acetone aldol condensation products over Pt/TiO2 catalyst (2017) Applied Catalysis A: General, 530, pp. 174-183.
Horáček, J., Kubička, D. Bio-oil hydrotreating over conventional CoMo & NiMo catalysts: The role of reaction conditions and additives (2017) Fuel, 198, pp. 49-57.