Hydro-liquefaction of woody biomass for bio-oil in supercritical solvent with [BMIM]Cl/NiCl2 catalyst

Abstract

Thermochemical liquefaction characteristics of sawdust were explored with ethanol as solvent and [BMIM]Cl–NiCl 2 as catalyst. The influences of liquefac-tion parameters including reaction temperature, residence time and hydrogen initial pressure on the sawdust con-version and products distribution were studied. The maxi-mum bio-oil yield of 75.45 % and conversion of 86.01 % were obtained in ethanol at 320 °C and 30 min under 10 MPa hydrogen pressure. The chemical composition of bio-oil and gaseous products derived from optimized con-ditions was analyzed via GC–MS and GC. These results showed that the dominant compounds of light oil were carboxylic acid, esters and phenol and its derivatives. In addition, the gaseous components consisted of CO 2 , CO, methane, ethane and ethene.