Catalytic hydrotreating of lignin
(2019) KETM05 20191Chemical Engineering (M.Sc.Eng.)
- Abstract
- One of the main challenge’s society faces today is climate change caused by CO2 due to the de-pendence on fossil fuels. To combat the increasing CO2 levels there is a need to develop renewable fuels. One such fuel could potentially be derived from lignin.
In this thesis, lignin derived from a pulp and paper mill was first treated and cleaned. The lignin was then processed by catalytic hydroprocessing. By varying time as well as the amount of H2 within the decided central composite design, the future direction of further could be discovered. For each experiment there was a comparison test conducted (blank) without lignin conducted in order to examine the effect of the lignin. The resulting products were analysed by GC-Fid through... (More) - One of the main challenge’s society faces today is climate change caused by CO2 due to the de-pendence on fossil fuels. To combat the increasing CO2 levels there is a need to develop renewable fuels. One such fuel could potentially be derived from lignin.
In this thesis, lignin derived from a pulp and paper mill was first treated and cleaned. The lignin was then processed by catalytic hydroprocessing. By varying time as well as the amount of H2 within the decided central composite design, the future direction of further could be discovered. For each experiment there was a comparison test conducted (blank) without lignin conducted in order to examine the effect of the lignin. The resulting products were analysed by GC-Fid through compari-son to biodiesel as well as commercial gasoline. Afterwards mass balances were used to analyse the yields.
The results of the experiments indicated that the set interval of parameters or equipment were not optimal for lignin. Since they resulted in a large amount of coke formation, especially in the cases of more severe treatment. For future research the results seem to point towards the use of higher content of H2 coupled with shorter reaction time.
However, different catalysts, equipment setups as well as lower temperatures will need to be evalu-ated for lignin fuel optimization. (Less) - Popular Abstract
- By using lignin, which is a biproduct of the pulp and paper industry, there is hope of reducing the worlds dependency on fossil fuels. In this work, lignin was broken down by hydrogen and heat to produce fuel. The results suggest higher amounts of hydrogen at lower temperatures as the direction of further work.
One of the largest challenges that is discussed today, is that of climate change. According to the United nations [1], “Climate Change is the defining issue of our time and we are at a defining moment. From shifting weather patterns that threaten food production, to rising sea levels that increase the risk of catastrophic flooding, the impacts of climate change are global in scope and unprecedented in scale. Without drastic... (More) - By using lignin, which is a biproduct of the pulp and paper industry, there is hope of reducing the worlds dependency on fossil fuels. In this work, lignin was broken down by hydrogen and heat to produce fuel. The results suggest higher amounts of hydrogen at lower temperatures as the direction of further work.
One of the largest challenges that is discussed today, is that of climate change. According to the United nations [1], “Climate Change is the defining issue of our time and we are at a defining moment. From shifting weather patterns that threaten food production, to rising sea levels that increase the risk of catastrophic flooding, the impacts of climate change are global in scope and unprecedented in scale. Without drastic action today, adapting to these impacts in the future will be more difficult and costly”. Climate change is mainly caused by the burning of fossil fuels, which today covers a lot of the world’s energy demand. By burning fossil fuel, CO2 is released into the atmosphere, which has been stored in the earth’s crust for millions of years. The increased CO2 in the atmosphere then traps more of the sun’s energy, which leads to increased temperatures around the globe. To prevent further increase in temperature, while continuing to enable our way of life, there is a need to find renewable sources of fuels.
Such renewable fuels could be made from wood, which takes us to the remarkable molecule of lignin. Lignin makes up roughly a third of all the contents of wood. Interestingly, other than being a renewable source, it is already being produced in huge quantities around the world, since in the making of paper, it needs to be removed. This means that lignin is available in huge quantities, which if converted to fuel, would enable large quantities of fossil fuels being left in the ground. Before lignin can be used for fuel, it needs to be broken down into smaller molecules of the right size. For this sake, lignin was treated by H2 at high temperatures and the products were evaluated.
The results showed that the selected duration of experiments and/or possibly the temperature was set to high. This was shown by the unwanted gas and coke content, which increased the longer the experiments took. Furthermore, it was also shown that higher H2 pressure led to less gas and coke being formed from lignin. Nonetheless, the results showed fuel being made from lignin, which was seen in the experiments with the lowest duration and at the highest H2 pressure. This means that future experiments should be done in those directions. However, during experimentation and evaluation, several issues arose with the method and equipment, which could affect the results. For example, the heater couldn’t sometimes keep the temperature up, there were large variations in results of repeated experiments, many leaks were detected, and it took a long time heat up and cooldown the reactor. This means that a different experimental setup might be desirable in future experiments.
The conclusion that can be drawn is that lignin is an exciting field with lots of potential, and we might be one step closer to a world that is free of fossil fuels. However, there is much more work that needs to be done in the field of making fuel from lignin. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/8998615
- author
- Lilja, Markus LU
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- KETM05 20191
- year
- 2019
- type
- H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
- subject
- keywords
- Lignin, hydrotreating, kemiteknik, chemical engineering
- language
- English
- id
- 8998615
- date added to LUP
- 2020-02-17 14:30:39
- date last changed
- 2020-02-17 14:30:39
@misc{8998615,
abstract = {{One of the main challenge’s society faces today is climate change caused by CO2 due to the de-pendence on fossil fuels. To combat the increasing CO2 levels there is a need to develop renewable fuels. One such fuel could potentially be derived from lignin.
In this thesis, lignin derived from a pulp and paper mill was first treated and cleaned. The lignin was then processed by catalytic hydroprocessing. By varying time as well as the amount of H2 within the decided central composite design, the future direction of further could be discovered. For each experiment there was a comparison test conducted (blank) without lignin conducted in order to examine the effect of the lignin. The resulting products were analysed by GC-Fid through compari-son to biodiesel as well as commercial gasoline. Afterwards mass balances were used to analyse the yields.
The results of the experiments indicated that the set interval of parameters or equipment were not optimal for lignin. Since they resulted in a large amount of coke formation, especially in the cases of more severe treatment. For future research the results seem to point towards the use of higher content of H2 coupled with shorter reaction time.
However, different catalysts, equipment setups as well as lower temperatures will need to be evalu-ated for lignin fuel optimization.}},
author = {{Lilja, Markus}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{Catalytic hydrotreating of lignin}},
year = {{2019}},
}