Wasteomics ⇒ a workflow to analyze complex reaction environments, waste, and realistic feeds conversions



Problem statement

In most heterogeneous catalytic processes, the reactive environment contains a mixture of reactants, intermediates, and products, and some adsorbed-trapped on the catalytic surface and elsewhere. Thus, most reacting environments in catalysis are complex, involve several phases (multiphase), and comprise unstable species or are challenging to analyze. To make things worse, some of these species have (auto-)catalytic or deactivating nature on the kinetics of the surrounding ones.

A typical practice in catalysis is using model molecules or surrogates to deepen into the mechanistic pathways, microkinetics, spectroscopy, etc. Conversely, analytical techniques keep evolving, becoming more precise but always targeting a specific fraction or type of species. That is to say, there is only one technique that solves all.

We aim to bridge the fundamental research performed in our group and outside using model molecules with a powerful analytical multi-technique approach to analyze the entire reaction media. The -omics fields inspire us to reflect on the collective characterization and quantification of pools of molecules that translate into the structure, function, and dynamics involved. We apply our approach to hydrocarbon transformations and green-sustainable feedstock (i.e., waste plastics, sewage sludge, biomass, algae, and seaweed). We develop multi-technique analytical protocols for the complete chemical molecular-level description of complex mixtures.

Goals

  • Analytical workflow ⇒ multi-analytical technique integration
  • Wasteometrics I ⇒ quantitative- and molecular-level analysis
  • Wasteometrics II ⇒ data mining and processing
  • Wasteomics ⇒ reaction networks and kinetic modeling

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Related Publications

Detailed nature of tire pyrolysis oil blended with light cycle oil and its hydroprocessed products using a NiW/HY catalyst

by Palos, Kekalainen, Duodu, Gutierrez, Arandes, Janis, Castaño
Energy Year: 2021 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wasman.2021.04.041

Abstract

The pyrolysis of scrap tires is a very attractive strategy to valorize chemically these end-of-life wastes. The products of this step and any additional one, such as hydrotreating, are relatively complex in nature entangling the understanding and limiting the viability. In this work, we have investigated in detail the composition of a tire pyrolysis oil blended with light cycle oil (from a refinery) and its hydrotreated products using a bifunctional NiW/HY catalyst at 320–400 °C. We have applied a set of analytical techniques to assess the composition, namely simulated distillation, ICP, GC/FID-PFPD, GC × GC/MS, and APPI FT-ICR/MS. Our results show the strength of our analytical workflow to highlight the compositional similarities of this pyrolysis oil with the standard refinery streams. The main differences arise from the higher boiling point species (originated during the pyrolysis of tires) and relatively high concentration of oxygenates. These effects can be minimized by hydrotreating the feed which effectively removes heteroatomic compounds from the feed while boosting the quantity and quality of gasoline and diesel fractions.

Keywords

ANW HPC