Electrochemical Upgrading of Pyrolysis Oil

可持续航空燃料（SAF）将成为航空业脱碳的关键产品。在该领域取得专有技术的领先地位将有助于bp实现可持续发展目标的第2、3和5个目标。一种新兴的生产SAF的技术是通过电化学升级热解油，这是一种通过生物质热解产生的液体。热解油呈酸性，含水量高于传统炼油粗料，且含氧量丰富；所有这些都阻碍了储存稳定性和炼油厂对成品燃料的后续处理（通常通过催化升级）。与炼油工艺相比，电化学加氢（ECH）可以提供一种预处理选择，通过在环境压力和较低温度下去除氧气来稳定石油，从而提供潜在的能源和成本节约。因此，ECH预处理可以成为改善全球市场上生物质热解油交易和储存的重要推动因素，此外，它还可以减少将石油中间体加工成SAF级最终产品的后续升级要求，为从生物质中获得可扩展的SAF原料铺平道路。博士项目的目标是获得对热解油电化学加氢的基本催化理解。该项目旨在回答以下问题：热解油ECH预处理最有价值的目标是什么？对热解油进行ECH的基本机理/表面化学性质是什么？我们能否设计出一种对ECH有选择性且对所有优选组分都有活性的催化剂？我们如何评估真正的催化剂性能和失活机制与非模型化合物？

Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) is set to become a crucial product to decarbonize the aviation industry. Achieving proprietary technology leadership in this sector will help bp achieve aim 2, 3, and 5 of the sustainability goals. One emerging technology to produce SAF is through electrochemical upgrading of pyrolysis oil, a liquid produced through biomass pyrolysis. Pyrolysis oil is acidic, contains higher water-content than traditional refinery crude feed, and rich in oxygen; all of which hampers storage stability and subsequent processing (often through catalytic upgrading) in a refinery towards finished fuel products. Electrochemical hydrogenation (ECH) may offer a pre-treatment option to stabilise the oil by removing oxygen at ambient pressure and a lower temperature compared to refinery processes, hence offering potential energy and cost savings . ECH pre-treatment could thus become an important enabler for improving the trading and storage of biomass pyrolysis oil in a worldwide market, plus it could reduce the subsequent upgrading requirements to process the oil intermediate into SAF-grade end product, paving the path for a scalable SAF feedstock from biomass. The aim of the proposed PhD project is to gain a fundamental catalytic understanding of electrochemical hydrogenation of pyrolysis oil. The project will aim to answer the following questions: What are the most valuable targets for ECH pre-treatment from pyrolysis oil?What is the underpinning mechanism/surface chemistry to perform ECH for pyrolysis oils leading to the preferred products? Can we engineer a catalyst that is selective to ECH and active for all preferred components? How do we assess the true catalyst performance and deactivation mechanisms with non-model compounds?