Purification of the diesel fraction of a novel biomass-to-liquid process

乙醇是全球范围内最常用的生物燃料之一，用于取代运输中使用的部分化石燃料，运输是加拿大最重要的温室气体生产者之一。虽然实际的联邦授权代表了每年的大量（2BL/y），但存在与乙醇及其与发动机的兼容性相关的某些问题。此外，这种生物燃料不一定适合所有类型的发动机，因此不能满足所有需求。航空和重型运输等工业仍然依赖于烷烃，此时很少经济地从木质纤维素生物质生产烷烃。这项工作旨在支持CelluFuel的工业计划，目标是使用CTC工艺将木质纤维素残留物（更具体地说是木材厂残留物）直接转化为柴油级烷烃。更具体地说，这项工作将致力于测试，设计和组装一种新的净化方法，使其专利技术产生的主要产品达到燃料级柴油的规格。除技术方面外，将研究的净化方法必须尽可能具有成本效益，并涉及易于回收和再生以供进一步使用的材料。为此，将在两个层面上对该项目进行研究，首先是一个实验室规模的系统，在该系统中，将在较小的单元中对混合物进行测试，以减少在初步步骤中待处理的产品量。下一步将是设计一个试点单位，将直接在CelluFuel演示系统上进行在线测试。

Ethanol is one of the most common biofuel used at global scale to displace part of the fossil fuel used in transportation, one of Canada's most important GHG producer. Although the actual federal mandate represents significant volumes on a yearly basis (2BL/y) there is certain issues related to ethanol and its compatibility with engines. In addition, this biofuel does not necessarily fit will all type of motors hence will not answer to all the demand. Industries such as aviation and heavy transportation still relies on alkanes which are at this point rarely produced from lignocellulosic biomass economically. This work is intended to support CelluFuel's industrial initiative targeting the direct conversion of lignocellulosic residues (more specifically lumber mill residues) into diesel grade alkanes using the CTC process. More specifically, this work will be dedicated in testing, designing and assembling a new purification method allowing the primary products generated from their patented technology to reach the specifications of fuel-grade diesel. In addition to the technical aspects, the purification methods that will be investigated will have to be as cost-effective as possible and involve materials that will be easily recovered and regenerated for further uses. To this purpose the project will be investigated on two levels, first of which will a bench scale system where the mixture will be tested in a smaller unit in order to reduce the volume of products to be treated in the preliminary steps. The next step will be to design a pilot unit that will be tested directly online on CelluFuel demonstration systems.