Due to fossil fuel depletion, global warming and environmental problems, conversion of biomass into renewable hydrocarbons to supplement or gradually replace petroleum is highly desirable.
1 Hydrocarbons with different carbon range and structures (linear or branched) can be used as jet-fuel (C
8-C
16), diesel (C
9-C
22) and lubricant base oils (C
20-C
50). In recent years, great efforts have been devoted to the synthesis of various hydrocarbons from furan platforms by C-C coupling and hydrodeoxygenation (HDO). The HDO step is more challenging due to the involvement of high reaction temperature and pressure. We previously reported that rhenium oxide modified iridium (Ir-ReO
x/SiO
2) was an effective catalyst for the HDO of high carbon furylmethanes to C
12-C
15 branched hydrocarbons.
2 However, rhenium is expensive and its replacement with a cheap metal can make renewable hydrocarbons cost-competitive and preserve rare metals. In this study, we show that a molybdenum oxide modified iridium catalyst (Ir-MoO
x/SiO
2) achieves comparable HDO performance as the Ir-ReO
x/SiO
2 and produces up to 90% jet-fuel range alkanes. Optimization of reaction conditions, catalyst recycling, extensive catalyst characterization and the reaction mechanism will be discussed.
- W. Huber, S. Iborra, A. Corma, Chem. Rev., 2006, 106, 4044-4098.
- S. Liu, S. Dutta, W. Zheng, N. S. Gould, Z. Cheng, B. Xu, B. Saha, D. G. Vlachos, ChemSusChem, 2017, 10, 3225-3234.
