Novel pathways for fuels and lubricants from biomass optimized using life-cycle greenhouse gas assessment


Balakrishnan M., Sacia E. R., Sreekumar S., Gunbas G., Gokhale A. A., Scown C. D., ...Daha Fazla

PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, cilt.112, sa.25, ss.7645-7649, 2015 (SCI-Expanded) identifier identifier identifier identifier

  • Yayın Türü: Makale / Tam Makale
  • Cilt numarası: 112 Sayı: 25
  • Basım Tarihi: 2015
  • Doi Numarası: 10.1073/pnas.1508274112
  • Dergi Adı: PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
  • Derginin Tarandığı İndeksler: Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED), Scopus
  • Sayfa Sayıları: ss.7645-7649
  • Anahtar Kelimeler: biofuels, lubricants, life cycle assessment, methyl ketones, greenhouse gases, SYNTHETIC LUBRICANTS, CATALYSTS, ART
  • Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi Adresli: Evet

Özet

Decarbonizing the transportation sector is critical to achieving global climate change mitigation. Although biofuels will play an important role in conventional gasoline and diesel applications, bioderived solutions are particularly important in jet fuels and lubricants, for which no other viable renewable alternatives exist. Producing compounds for jet fuel and lubricant base oil applications often requires upgrading fermentation products, such as alcohols and ketones, to reach the appropriate molecular-weight range. Ketones possess both electrophilic and nucleophilic functionality, which allows them to be used as building blocks similar to alkenes and aromatics in a petroleum refining complex. Here, we develop a method for selectively upgrading biomass-derived alkyl methyl ketones with > 95% yields into trimer condensates, which can then be hydrodeoxygenated in near-quantitative yields to give a new class of cycloalkane compounds. The basic chemistry developed here can be tailored for aviation fuels as well as lubricants by changing the production strategy. We also demonstrate that a sugarcane biorefinery could use natural synergies between various routes to produce a mixture of lubricant base oils and jet fuels that achieve net life-cycle greenhouse gas savings of up to 80%.