Hydrodeoxygenation step

The copper-chromium oxide has two different active sites in a reduced state. The cuprous ions associated with a hydride and two anionic vacancies are the hydrogenation (HYD) sites. The chromium ions in the same environment are the sites where occur the isomerization (I) and the hydrodeoxygenation (HDO) reactions. The use of unsaturated ethers permits to confirm and to precise the nature and the role of the active sites. With the compounds which have the oxygen atom kept away of the catalyst s surface, the HYD activity is very low and the HDO/I ratio too, whereas, in the opposite case, these values increase. With the vinylic ethers, the saturated compound is the main product because the I and the HDO reactions proceed via a concerted mechanism with a common preliminar step and an allylic rearrangement which is impossible with geminate functions. 

Conversion of biomass at a temperature of 300 350 °C and a pressure of 120-180 bar within the so-called HydroThermal Upgrading (HTU) process yields a mixture of hydrocarbons, carbon dioxide, water and dissolved organics, which can be further processed in a catalytic HydroDeOxygenation (HDO) step to yield diesel with characteristics similar to fossil diesel. A major advantage is that wet biomass feedstocks can be employed without drying in contrast, water at hydrothermal conditions acts as a solvent and reactant at the same time, leading to a product with less oxygen compared to biocrude prepared by pyrolysis. 

Jongerius AL, Bruijnincx PCA, Weckhuysen BM (2013) Liquid-phase reforming and hydrodeoxygenation as a two-step route to aromatics from lignin. Green Chem 15 3049... 

Xu, X., Zhang, C., Liu, Y., Zhai, Y., Zhang, R., 2013. Two-step catalytic hydrodeoxygenation of fast pyrolysis oil to hydrocarbon liquid fuels. Chemosphere 93, 652—660. 

---