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Updated: Mar 29, 2026

Biomass Conversion to Produce Hydrocarbon Liquid Fuel Via Hot-vapor Filtered Fast Pyrolysis and Catalytic Hydrotreating
Published on: December 25, 2016
Improving Heterogeneous Catalyst Stability for Liquid-phase Biomass Conversion and Reforming
Florent Héroguel1, Bartosz Rozmysłowicz1, Jeremy S Luterbacher2
1Laboratory of Sustainable and Catalytic Processing Institute of Chemical Sciences and Engineering École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland.
Abstract:
Biomass is a possible renewable alternative to fossil carbon sources. Today, many bio-resources can be converted to direct substitutes or suitable alternatives to fossil-based fuels and chemicals. However, catalyst deactivation under the harsh, often liquid-phase reaction conditions required for biomass treatment is a major obstacle to developing processes that can compete with the petrochemical industry. This review presents recently developed strategies to limit reversible and irreversible catalyst deactivation such as metal sintering and leaching, metal poisoning and support collapse. Methods aiming to increase catalyst lifetime include passivation of low-stability atoms by overcoating, creation of microenvironments hostile to poisons, improvement of metal stability, or reduction of deactivation by process engineering.
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