93. Nahreen, Shaima; Gupta,
Ram B., Conversion of the Acetone-Butanol-Ethanol
(ABE) Mixture to Hydrocarbons by Catalytic Dehydration, Energy & Fuels
2013, 27(4), 2116-2125.
Abstract
Acetone-butanol-ethanol (ABE) mixture, containing 62.9 wt% n-butanol, 29.3 wt% acetone and 7.8 wt% ethanol,
can be produced from biomass through the well-established ABE fermentation
process using genetically-modified clostridium acetobutylicum.
In this work the catalytic dehydration reactions of ABE mixture is studied to
deoxygenate the mixture. Feed of ABE mixture was preheated and pumped through a
catalytic packed bed tubular reactor in a continuous process at pressures of
3-13 bar. Experiments were run at different operating
temperatures and feed flow rates to observe the effect on the dehydration
products, which are mixtures of three phases: (1) a gas phase consisting of
light hydrocarbons and carbon dioxide, (2) an organic liquid phase consisting
of heavy hydrocarbons , and (3) an aqueous phase with
dissolved oxygenated hydrocarbons. The
products were analyzed and compared to those from the dehydration of pure n-butanol, acetone and ethanol feedstocks.
The conversion is examined on two different catalysts: an alumina
(γ-Al2O3) and a zeolite (ZSM-5). The dehydration products from the ABE
mixture are mostly unsaturated hydrocarbon chains in the range of C2-C16. Based
on the higher heating values (HHV) of the liquid products and infra-red spectra
of the gas products, it can be concluded that the products from the ABE
feedstock are different from those from the individual components, which
suggests a cross reactivity of the components during the reaction. HHV of the
liquid product increases with a decrease in the feed flow rate, and
γ-Al2O3 catalyst is better than ZSM-5 for getting a good conversion of ABE
in terms of liquid product energy content at a moderate reaction time.
Back to homepage of Prof. Gupta