OP-II-3

PP-III-29AQUEOUS PHASE REFORMING OF BIOMASS DERIVED ALCOHOLSAND POLYOLS TO HYDROGEN AND FUEL COMPONENTSKirilin A. 1 , Tokarev A. 1 , Salmi T. 1 , Mikkola J. 1,2 , Murzin D. 11 Laboratory of Industrial Chemistry and Reaction Engineering, Åbo AkademiUniversity,Turku, Finland, akirilin@abo.fi2 Department of Chemistry, Technical Chemistry, Chemical Biological Centre, UmeåUniversity, Umeå, SwedenProcessing of biomass-derived compounds for the production of various valuablechemicals is nowadays of high importance [1]. Aqueous phase reforming (APR) ofoxygenated hydrocarbons originating from biomass is among promising methods toproduce hydrogen [2] and components of liquid fuels [3]. However, conversion ofrenewables via APR often faces a number of challenges including the developmentof effective, selective and stable catalyts, process technology etc. Understanding ofthe process chemistry, e.g. the influence of the feed nature, the identification ofproducts and intermediates, their transformations, is an essential step towardsimproved process effeciency.In the present work aqueous phase reforming of various oxygenates derived frombiomass: bioethanol, glycerol and sorbitol (10 wt.% solutions in water was studied).Continuous stainless steel reactor (fixed bed) was applied to investigate theperformance of 5 wt.% Pt/Al 2 O 3 catalyst (dispersion 34%) at a space velocitiy of0.6 -3 h –1 at 225°C and 2.93MPa (carrier gas N 2 ).For APR of ethanol, a conversion of 99% of the starting material was reached,however, methane formation was found to be very prominent. Its formation canproceed through initial ethanol dehydrogenation to acetaldehyde, which in turnundergoes decarbonylation to form methane and CO (yield 0.1 mmol/min). Under theexperimental conditions, carbon monoxide reacts with water via water-gas shiftreaction producing CO 2 and H 2 , which were observed in reasonable amounts(0.44 and 0.22 mmol/min, respectively). Changing the feedstock to glycerol, the levelof conversion and H 2 formation remained constant whereas much less methaneformation was observed (0.078 mmol/min) implying that glycerol is a more feasiblerenewable feed for the APR process.The main focus was put on the conversion of sorbitol as the most promising rawmaterial for the APR process due to the possibility of obtaining transportation fuelcomponents (hexane etc) and better ratio between H 2 and CO 2 in reforming process492