Extractive Catalytic Oxidative Deoxygenation of Model Fuels Catalyzed by a Vanadium-Substituted Heteropolyacid and Molecular Oxygen

Extractive catalytic oxidative deoxygenation (ECODO) completes extractive catalytic oxidative desulfurization (ECODS) and extractive catalytic oxidative denitrogenation by removing organic oxygen from fuels. This is particularly necessary for renewable fuels to make them more stable and efficient. In ECODO, compounds such as cresol, furan, and their derivatives could be completely oxidized under oxygen at 20 bar and 120 degrees C using an aqueous heteropolyacid catalyst solution. The oxidation products were separated in situ in the three-phase process, either as CO2 or CO in the gas phase or as water-soluble organic acids like formic and acetic acid as well as acetone. In the case of stable dibenzofuran (DBF), the conversion could be drastically increased from only 27% to above 50% by tuning the reaction conditions and optimizing the catalyst loading by a design of experiment. Moreover, the amount of oxygen in the gas phase could be drastically reduced from 20 to 4 bar operating in 20 bar of synthetic air without limiting the performance of the catalyst. Furthermore, it could be shown that the parallel ECODS in the presence of an oxygenate like DBF leads to better desulfurization of model gasoline than without. The ECODO therefore offers a potential alternative to the classical hydrodeoxygenation, which is not only more energy-efficient but also replaces the expensive hydrogen with cheap air and avoids additional unit operations for fuel cleaning.