Upgrading of Bio-Oil into High-Value Hydrocarbons via Hydrodeoxygenation

World energy consumption is forecasted to grow significantly for the foreseeable future with fossil fuel remains the governing energy source. The demand in the need to explore alternative fuel source was further triggered by the overwhelmingly inconsistent cost of gasoline. Bio-oil is an alternative energy source produced from pyrolysis of biomass. However it is undesirable as a ready alternative transportation fuel due to its unfavourable nature i.e. highly oxygenated and low octane number. To overcome these physicochemical issues, hydrodeoxygenation reaction is a possible upgrading method i.e. by partial or total elimination of oxygen and hydrogenation of chemical structures. Hence, this work aims to investigate feasible routes and to develop the process route to upgrade the pyrolytic bio-oil from biomass into value-added chemicals for the production of transportation fuel, i.e. benzene and cyclohexane, via hydrodeoxygenation process using simulation approach. This study also promotes the prospect of co-processing bio-oil in standard refinery units to produce chemicals and fuels. In this work, hydrodeoxygenation of phenols and substituted phenols is used to represent the hydrodeoxygenation of the major oxygen compound in bio-oil due to their low reactivity in HDO. By assuming the feedstock used is 1% of the total palm shell available in Malaysia, i.e. 2,587 kg/hr bio-oil, the simulation predicts the production of 226 kg/hr benzene, 236 kg/hr cyclohexane and 7 kg/hr cyclohexene, with the yield of 34%, 81% and 3% respectively. The preliminary economic potential is calculated to be positive. It is also observed that hydrogen is the limiting reactant in the hydrogenation reaction.