Hydrotreating of Wheat Straw in Toluene and Ethanol
Bioresource Technology 2014
Raimonds Mūrnieks, Valdis Kampars, Kristaps Māliņš, Lauma Apšeniece

In the present work, wheat straw was hydroliquefied at a temperature of 300°C for 4h in ethanol or toluene in order to obtain bio-components which are useful for fuel purposes. The experiments were performed in a 100mL batch reactor under hydrogen pressure of 70 bar. Typically, 2g of straw and 0.1g of catalyst (66%Ni/SiO2-Al2O3) were dispersed in 15 g of solvent. The main compounds of the oil produced during the liquefaction of hemicellulose, cellulose and lignin of wheat straw in both solvents are: tetrahydrofuran-2-methanol, 1,2-butanediol and butyrolactone. Besides the mentioned compounds, ethanol favoured the decomposition of bigger molecules to short-chain alcohols such as 1-butanol, 1,2-propanediol and 1,2-ethanediol. Toluene contributes to the production of furans and other cyclic compounds. The light fractions distilled together with the solvent also contain the following: 1-propanol, 2-methyl-cyclopentanone, acetic acid and ethyl acetate.


Keywords
Ethanol; Hydroliquefaction; Solvolysis; Toluene; Wheat straw
DOI
10.1016/j.biortech.2014.04.022
Hyperlink
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960852414005173

Mūrnieks, R., Kampars, V., Māliņš, K., Apšeniece, L. Hydrotreating of Wheat Straw in Toluene and Ethanol. Bioresource Technology, 2014, Vol.163, pp.106-111. ISSN 0960-8524. Available from: doi:10.1016/j.biortech.2014.04.022

Publication language
English (en)
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