Renewable aromatic production through hydrodeoxygenation of model bio-oil over mesoporous Ni/SBA-15 and Co/SBA-15

In present work, ordered mesoporous material SBA-15 was synthesized and used as the support for the dispersion of the nickel and cobalt active metal. XRD, N2 sorption, ICP, H2-TPR and TEM techniques were used for the Ni/SBA-15 and Co/SBA-15 catalysts characterization. Both Ni/SBA-15 and Co/SBA-15 catalysts were tested for the hydrogenation of the typical oxygen-containing molecule present in bio-oil in order to produce the renewable aromatic. Ni/SBA-15 catalyst exhibit much higher catalytic performance as compared with Co/SBA-15 catalyst for the hydrodeoxygenation reaction performance of anisole, but it is also obvious that the Ni/SBA-15 catalyst would inevitably lead to the emergence of partial hydrodeoxygenation product methoxycyclohexane. On the contrary, the direct hydrogenolysis of methoxy-functional group from anisole molecule could prevail over the Co/SBA-15, leading to much higher aromatic selectivity over the Co/SBA-15. Co/SBA-15 could selectively hydrogenolyse the CO bond and could act as the potential hydrodeoxygenation catalyst for aromatic production from the bio-oils because of its high efficiency in the removal of oxygen by a direct hydrogenolysis route.