Adaptation of a Monte Carlo method to the hydrotreating of bio-oil model compounds
Résumé
Lignocellulosic biomass, like oil fractions, is a source of hydrocarbons. The transformation from biomass to liquid hydrocarbons passes by several processes: pre-treatment, conversion, followed by post-treatment. In one of the possible transformation schemes, the biomass undergoes fast pyrolysis, and the produced bio-oils are upgraded through hydroconversion and hydrotreating. Similar to the heavy oil fractions, bio-oils are complex mixtures and, consequently, they have a complex reaction behaviour. For this reason, in the present work, the reaction pathways of model molecules representative of bio-oil are studied under hydrotreating conditions over a NiMo/Al2O3 catalyst. To simulate the various transformations, a kinetic Monte Carlo method, called Stochastic Simulation Algorithm, is applied to guaiacol, furfural and D-glucose and compared to the experimental results.