Conditioning a Multiphase Batch Reactor, Operational and Analytical Workflows For Bio-oil Hydrodeoxygenation

The production of biomass-derived fuels (biofuels) represents an important sustainable carbon-based alternative to reduce fossil fuel usage and mitigate their negative environmental impact. Nonetheless, these fuels contain a significant oxygen content, hindering their direct application as fuels. Hydrodeoxygenation is a promising route to upgrade biofuels to the required fuel quality. This thesis aims to prepare a workflow for testing catalysts and conditions for bio-oil hydrodeoxygenation. This workflow includes setting up a multiphase batch reactor system and the recovery, handling, and analysis of the liquid reaction products. The standardization of the operating procedure and retrieval of products resulted in low variability in product yields and minimization of product losses through replicates of experiments. We established the analytical workflow for the description of the liquid products based on integrating the results of multiple analytical techniques, such as Elemental Analysis (EA), Karl Fischer (KF), Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS), as well as Nuclear Magnetic Resonance spectroscopy (NMR). Overall, the presented workflow allows us to avoid operational problems while working on a multiphase batch reactor system. We also successfully close the mass balance and analyze the product liquid fraction in the hydrodeoxygenation of oxygenated complex mixtures.