Open Access

ARTICLE

Hydroprocessing and Blending of a Biomass-Based DTG-Gasoline

David Graf, Philipp Neuner, Reinhard Rauch^*

Department Fuel Technology (EBI-ceb), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Engler-Bunte-Institute, Karlsruhe, 76131, Germany

* Corresponding Author: Reinhard Rauch. Email:

Energy Engineering 2022, 119(6), 2169-2192. https://doi.org/10.32604/ee.2022.022759

Received 24 March 2022; Accepted 26 May 2022; Issue published 14 September 2022

Abstract

The number of annually registered internal-combustion vehicles still exceeds electric-driven ones in most regions, e.g., Germany. Ambitious goals are disclosed with the European Green Deal, which calls for new technical approaches and greenhouse gas neutral transition technologies. Such bridging technologies are synthetic fuels for the transportation sector, e.g., using the bioliq^® process for a CO₂-neutral gasoline supply. Fuels must meet the applicable national standards to be used in existing engines. Petrochemical parameters can be variably adapted to their requirements by hydroprocessing. In this work, we considered the upgrading of aromatic-rich DTG gasoline from the bioliq^® process. The heavy gasoline was therefore separated from the light one by rectification. We investigated how to selectively modify the petrochemical parameters of the heavy gasoline, especially the boiling characteristics, to make the product suitable as a high-quality blending component. Three commercially available Pt/zeolite catalysts were tested over a wide range of temperature and space velocity. We achieved high gasoline yields, while the content of light end compounds up to a boiling temperature of 150°C could be increased significantly. In contrast to the high naphthenic content of the gasoline, the obtained octane numbers were satisfactory. Especially the Motor Octane Number turned out unexpectedly high and showed a dependency on the isomerization of the naphthenic rings. By blending the upgraded heavy gasoline with the previously separated light gasoline, we could finally show that hydroprocessing is suitable for adjusting petrochemical parameters. The aromatic concentration was 37.5% lower than that in the original raw gasoline, while the boiling characteristics improved significantly. Additionally, the final boiling point was 82°C lower, which is beneficial for the emission behavior.

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Keywords

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