Abstract
Sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) is essential to decrease the carbon footprint of the aviation industry. Although many strategies have been developed to provide the linear and branched aliphatic components of SAF, few viable strategies have been demonstrated to supply the aromatic and cycloalkane fraction of the SAF at the necessary scale from bio-based feedstocks. Lignin is the largest natural source of renewable aromatic compounds; however, major challenges in deoxygenation have prevented its use as a feedstock for SAFs. Here, we report a continuous, two-stage catalytic process using molybdenum carbide to deoxygenate lignin from poplar into aromatic hydrocarbons with 87.5% selectivity toward aromatic hydrocarbons at 86% of the theoretical carbon recovery. Tier α fuel property testing indicates that the SAF-range lignin-derived aromatic compounds are likely performance-advantaged across multiple properties relative to conventional jet fuel aromatic compounds. This work demonstrates an effective approach to convert lignin into aromatic SAF blendstocks.
Original language | American English |
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Pages (from-to) | 2324-2337 |
Number of pages | 14 |
Journal | Joule |
Volume | 6 |
Issue number | 10 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 2022 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2022 Elsevier Inc.
NREL Publication Number
- NREL/JA-2A00-82012
Keywords
- biofuels
- biomass fractionation
- biorefining
- hydrodeoxygenation
- lignin first
- lignin valorization
- reductive catalytic fractionation
- sustainable aviation fuels