Integrated plasma catalytic processes for hydrogen-free upgrading of biomass-derived biofuels to hydrocarbon fuels

原油需求的不断增长和全球最大采掘量的接近，再加上管理温室气体排放的需要，使得可持续能源的发展变得至关重要。可再生柴油/汽油燃料是未来的运输燃料。加拿大、美国（到2022年混合600亿升生物燃料）和欧盟（到2020年运输部门可再生能源占比达到10%）最近都采取了雄心勃勃的生物燃料支持政策。这一战略拨款申请旨在使生物质衍生的生物燃料能够在非常规环境中升级-无氢和低压。该计划是建立在新不伦瑞克大学郑颖实验室和贝尔法斯特女王大学胡培军实验室的合作基础上的。我们的工业合作伙伴是大西洋氢公司，该公司长期以来一直对等离子体技术在“绿色”能源中的应用感兴趣。生物质衍生的生物燃料是一种复杂的含氧化合物混合物，需要升级才能直接用作燃料或混合成石油柴油/汽油。在此次合作过程中，我们将开发一种集成的等离子体催化工艺和一种高效的催化剂，用于在不存在高压氢气的情况下从生物燃料中去除氧气。消除加压氢气不仅可以显著降低成本，而且还可以让分散的小型生物精炼厂使用该技术，因为高压氢气通常可以在集中式工厂获得。

The combination of escalating demand for crude oil and approaching global maximum extraction, plus the need to manage greenhouse gas emissions, make the development of sustainable energy sources critical. Renewable diesel/gasoline fuels are the transportation fuels of future. Ambitious biofuel support policies have recently been adopted by Canada, United States (with 60 billion litres of biofuel blended by 2022) and the European Union (with 10% renewable energy in the transport sector by 2020).This strategic grant application aims to enable upgrading biomass-derived biofuel in an unconventional environment - hydrogenless and low pressure. The plan is to build on the collaboration between the labs of Ying Zheng at the University of New Brunswick and of Peijun Hu at the Queen's University at Belfast. Our industrial partner is Atlantic Hyrogen Inc. which has a long-standing interest in application of plasma technology in "green" energy. Biomass-derived biofuel is a mixture of complex oxygenates that need to be upgraded before it can be used directly as fuel or blended to Petroleum diesel/gasoline. In the course of this collaboration we will develop an integrated plasma catalytic process and an efficient catalyst for removal of oxygen from biofuels without the presence of highly pressurized hydrogen gas. Elimination of pressurized hydrogen gas will not only represent significant reduction in costs but also allow decentralized small biorefineries to use the technology, as high pressurized hydrogen gas is often available at centralized plants.