Abstract
Hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) is a promising method for processing wet biomass and waste feedstock to produce biofuels. During the HTL process, proteins and other biomolecules in certain feedstock get converted into nitrogenous compounds in the produced biocrude, which represents a major challenge to further upgrading them into fuels. One promising approach is to separate nitrogenous compounds from the biocrude using polymeric resins. In this work, experiments were conducted to downselect sorbent and resin systems using a nitrogen compound-containing surrogate biocrude. We model the binding interactions between an Amberlyst polymeric resin with various compounds present in the biocrude mixture such as nitrogenous compounds like pyrrole, pyridine, hexanamide, and representative co-existing compounds like phenol and dodecanoic acid. To ascertain the efficiency of various resins in the denitrogenation process, we have developed a quantitative structure-function model for the interacting components in the mixture. Our results suggest that the Amberlyst resin is a viable candidate for efficient removal of target nitrogen-containing compounds (such as pyridine) from the biocrude as a result of favorable interactions. The computational studies provide some insight into how and why the identified resin (Amberlyst) works in selective extraction of nitrogenous compound(s).
Original language | English |
---|---|
Pages (from-to) | 13406-13413 |
Number of pages | 8 |
Journal | ACS Sustainable Chemistry and Engineering |
Volume | 9 |
Issue number | 40 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Oct 11 2021 |
Externally published | Yes |
Funding
This work was financially sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO). Computational resources were provided by research computing at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) and the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC), a U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science user facility operated under contract no. DE-AC02-05CH11231. PNNL is a multi-program national laboratory operated by Battelle for DOE under contract DE-AC05-76RL01830. Part of the experimental work was conducted at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, operated by UT-Battelle, LLC, for DOE under contract DE-AC05-00OR22725. All authors acknowledge the Bioprocessing Separations Consortium program.
Funders | Funder number |
---|---|
U.S. Department of Energy | DE-AC05-00OR22725, DE-AC02-05CH11231, DE-AC05-76RL01830 |
Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy | |
Bioenergy Technologies Office | |
National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center |
Keywords
- biofuel separations
- computation
- denitrogenation
- resin-based separations