Kinetics of hydrothermal reactions of n-butanol over Pt/Al2O3 catalyst for biopropane fuel gas production

Sayed Emad Hashemnezhad, Jude A. Onwudili*, Patricia Thornley, Keith E. Simons

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Energy defossilisation using drop-in biofuels is an important step towards Net Zero. Producing low-carbon clean-burning propane fuel from biomass provides such additional sustainability benefits. In this work, kinetics of hydrothermal reactions of n-butanol, a biomass-derived feedstock, to produce propane over 5 wt% Pt/Al2O3 catalyst have been studied from 523- 573 K. Experimental data revealed negligible internal and external mass transfer effects and, when fitted to an integral power-rate law equation, gave activation energy of 70 kJ mol−1 (n-butanol reaction order = 1). Furthermore, an appropriate Langmuir-Hinshelwood model was developed, which predicted similar activation energy 62 kJ mol−1. Low adsorption enthalpies for n-butanol (–33.51 kJ mol−1) and water (−18.16 kJ mol−1) indicated weak interactions on the catalyst surface. These agreed with the fast reaction rate of ≈1.0 x 10-5 mol gcat-1 s−1 obtained at ≥ 548 K. As a new research area, generation of such accurate kinetics data will contribute to process development for large-scale biopropane production.
Original languageEnglish
Article number157325
JournalChemical Engineering Journal
Volume501
Early online date13 Nov 2024
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Dec 2024

Bibliographical note

Copyright © The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons CC-BY license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. You are not required to obtain permission to reuse this article.

Keywords

  • Biobutanol
  • Biomass
  • Biopropane
  • Catalytic hydrothermal reaction
  • Defossilisation
  • Reaction kinetics

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