Steam Reforming and Oxidative steam reforming of bio-butanol

In recent times, the bio-n-butanol has been received widespread attention as bio-fuel because of its superior fuel qualities over biodiesel and bioethanol. The isobutanol having lesser toxicity and higher octane number compared to n-butanol and same essential fuel potentials as n-butanol is deliberated as one of the promising bio-fuels of the future. Once bio-butanols based biorefinery is realized successfully, novel methods of production of synthesis gas (SG) must also be established from bio-butanols. Apprehending tremendous upcoming prospective of bio-butanols based biorefinery, present work initiated to explore experimental and thermodynamic investigation on steam reforming (SR) and oxidative steamreforming (OSR) of isobutanol over supported metal catalysts for production of SG. The SG finds wide ranges of applications in chemical industries, for example, manufacture of hydrogen, ammonia, fertilizers, methanol, and dimethyl ether by Fischer-Tropsch synthesis (FTS). SG also provides a source of highly pure hydrogen for fuel cell applications to generate electric power in an environmentallycleaner manner.

Hydrodeoxygenation of vegetable oil/fatty acid for production of green diesel

The production of transportation fuels from biomass is extremely important to reduce the dependency on limited petroleum. The biodiesel and bio-ethanol are two important biofuels at the moment for application as transportation fuels. These oxygen-fuctionalised bio-fuels are, however, umsuitable for direct application in unmodified IC engines. Threfore, their application is limited to blending with petroleum-deriived transportation fuels to a limited extents only. The production of hydrocarbon transportation fuels from biomass is extremely important to circumvent the development of capital intensive new infrastructures. This concept is commonly known as hydrocarbon biorefinery. The hydrodeoxygenation of triglycerides (vegetable oils/fatty acids, microalgal oil, animal fat, waste cooking oil) is a potential method for the production diesel range transportation fuels commonly known as green diesel. The present work is thus focused on hydrodeoxygenation of vegetable oil/fatty acid or microalgal oil in presence of supported metal catalyst. The understanding the reaction mechanism, developing suitable catalysts, and mesuring fuel properties are some of the objectives of the present work.

Utilization of glycerol

With gradual depletion of fossil fuel reserves and continuously increasing energy demands and environmental concerns leads to think about an alternate source of energy that can be derived from renewable sources. Biodiesel was emerged as one such promising alternative to petroleum based diesel. Biodiesel is conventionally produced from vegetable oils by transesterification reaction with methyl or ethyl alcohol. During the production of methyl/ethyl esters of fatty acids present in such vegetable oils, about 10-15wt% of glycerol is produced as a by-product. When mass production of the biodiesel is realized, novel processes that utilize glycerol must be developed.One alternative is to etherify glycerol with alcohols and esterify with acids to produce value-added branched oxygen-containing components, which could have suitable properties for use as potential oxygenate additives to biodiesel for improving cold flow properties. The reactions were proposed to be carried out using solid acid catalyst, Ce-exchanged modified NaX (or NaY) zeolites.

Techno-economic analysis

Techno-economic analysis is extremely important to demonstrate suitability of a process for potential forthcoming commercial developments. The present work primarily aimed to (a) develop conceptual process using Aspen Plus and (b) economic evaluation of various processes to demonstrate economic feasibility of the process for upcoming technological developments. At present, techno-economic analysis is mainly focused on (a) hydrodeoxygenation of triglycerides (vegetable oil, animal fat, waste cooking oil, and microalgal oil) and (b) fermentative production of butanols from biomass.

Oligomerization of olefins

The production of hydrocarbon analogous transportation fuels from biomass in hydrocarbon biorefinery is gaining significant importance in recent times due to superior energy density, stability, and combustion characteristics over oxygenated bio-fuels. The present work is mainly focused on oligomerization of biomass derived olefins for production on hydrocarbon transportation fuels.