Progress of Cryogenics and Isotopes Separation , ISSN: 1582-2575
2013, Volume 16, Issue 2

The Catalytic Conversion of Renewable Feedstocks

Abstract

Glycerol, an available, cheap, non toxic feedstock as sustainable resource, one of the 12 chemicals from the Top Value Added Chemicals from Biomass, could serve as key feedstocks in future bio-refineries and could generate important environmental benefits. Glycerol hydrogenolysis under mild reaction conditions (200°C, 15-25 bar, 8 hours) is one option for the utilization of bio-renewable resources. Glycerol can be hydrogenated to propylene glycol using copper chromite catalyst with high yield and conversion.

By applying the Table Curve 2D program and taking into account that the dependence between the parameters of the hydrogenolysis process (conversion, selectivity, yield and pressure) a mathematical model is developed in the present paper. The most representative equations and the correlation coefficients for the catalysts are given. These models show common characteristics like a very good positioning of the experimental points on the response surfaces, the similar response surface shape and a correlation coefficient close to unity.

In order to verify the effectiveness of the regeneration procedure in connection with the reusing the catalyst for hydrogenolysis reaction of glycerol in basic conditions, different treatments were applied for regenerating the used catalyst. The obtained data in this work show that the methanol washing seems to be the best regeneration procedure.