Production of cyclohexane in the catalytic hydrotreating bio-oil

At present an actual task for researchers is biomass processing to fuels and fine synthesis reactants. Bio-oil is one of the valuable products of biomass processing through flash pyrolysis and contains great number of compounds that can be used in different fields of industry. However due to the high amount of oxygen the use of bio-oil without additional treatment is difficult. The main way to process bio-oil is hydrotreatment in the presence of catalysts based on noble metals which allows obtaining a wide diapason of products including cyclohexane. Cyclohexane can be applied in different fields of industry as a fuel, in caprolactam production, production of adipinic acid (the base of polyhexamethyladipinamyde, polyureates), as a solvent for fragrances, waxes, polymers, as well as an extragent in pharmaceutical industry. Current work is devoted to the investigation of the conversion of bio-oil model compound - anisole - to cyclohexane in the presence of platinum-containing catalysts on the base of polymeric matrix of hypercrosslinked polystyrene. During the study of influence of parameters on the anisole hydrodeoxygenation process the optimal process conditions allowing obtaining the high cyclohexane yield (99%) were chosen: hydrogen pressure 1.4 MPa; temperature 200 °С; initial concentration of anisole 0.5 mol/L.