Liquefaction of Bagasse in Tetralin in the Presence of Iron-based Catalyst

Sugarcane, an important economic crop in southern China, is widely used as a raw material for sugar production. Bagasse is the main by-product in sugar industry. However, a major part of bagasse hasn't been properly utilized although bagasse has been used to produce paper and animal feeding. [1-4]. The insufficient utilization of bagasse not only causes environmental pollution but also wastes a resource. One promising approach to utilize these resources is to produce liquid fuels or chemicals by liquefaction. ]5, 6]. The liquefaction of plant fibers are usually carried out in the solvents having strong abilities of donating protons. Homogeneous catalysts, e.g., acids or inorganic salts, are commonly used in earlier studies. They cannot meet the demands for high efficiency and long lifetime. Some relatively new heterogeneous catalysts, e. g., Ru, Rh, Co/Mo and Ni have been proposed. [7-9] However, the use of these catalysts were limited due to their high price. Iron-based catalysts have attracted people's attention due to its advantages of low price and high activity. [10] The iron catalyst having the apparent composition FeOOH presents high activity of hydrogenation. [11] It has been successfully used in the hydrogenation of low-rank coal. The liquefaction of bagasse in the presence of iron catalyst is investigated in this paper. FeOOH was impregnated on the surface of bagasse as the precursor of the catalyst. Then the bagasse impregnated with FeOOH was dispersed in tetralin, the hydrogen donor solvent. The liquefaction products were analyzed and characterized. The functions of the iron catalyst are discussed in this paper.