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Corresponding author.
E-mail address: oyama@vt.edu (S.T. Oyama).
of a reducing gas such as hydrogen [10], and in the hydrogena-
tion route aromatic rings are hydrogenated before removal of
oxygen [11]. The former has been reported on tungsten (IV) com-
pounds [12] and acidic zeolites such as HZSM-5 [13]. The latter
process is carried out at high pressure and temperature, and is
related to hydrotreating of petroleum feedstocks for removal of
sulfur and nitrogen. Thus, this hydrodeoxygenation (HDO) pro-
cess can potentially allow use of the existing petroleum rening
infrastructure for processing and transportation [14]. Conventional
sulde catalysts for petroleum hydroprocessing [15] and precious
metal catalysts [16] have been studied for their reactivity in gua-
iacol and model oxygenate compound HDO. Oxygenated groups
in pyrolysis oil such as ketones, aldehydes, and organic acids
require lower temperatures for elimination of the reactive func-
tionalities but guaiacol type molecules and other phenolic species
require higher temperature [17]. Phenyloxygen bonds are cleaved
at 500650K using hydropressing catalysts under hydrogen pres-
sure, inwhichthe oxygenis ultimatelyremovedas water. However,
typical hydrodesulfurization catalysts, such as NiMoS/Al
2
O
3
and
CoMoS/Al
2
O
3
were found to quickly deactivate by coke deposi-
tion in model HDO reactions because of the acidity of the reactant
[18]. Suldes on neutral supports including carbon, silica and
alumina modied by K for HDO reactions have been reported
[1720]. Yet the effect of modication for alumina supported cat-
alysts has not been optimized. It was found that guaiacol coking
reactions were negligible with molybdenum sulde supported on
0926-860X/$ see front matter 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.apcata.2010.07.039
306 H.Y. Zhao et al. / Applied Catalysis A: General 391 (2011) 305310
activatedcarbon, andthe catalyst showedgoodstability andpoten-
tial for catalytic hydrotreating system [21]. Noble metal Pt as an
active component was added to a conventional CoMoS catalyst and
showed no signicant improvement [17]. According to this study,
monometallic and bimetallic noble metal catalysts supported on
zirconia have lower coke formation than a CoMoS/Al
2
O
3
catalyst
and in particular Rh-containing catalysts demonstrate potential in
biofuel upgrading. Given the propensity of biofuels to thermally
decompose to form coke and coke-like matter, catalysts with sup-
ports that are less active for coke formation or more hydrogenating
catalysts permitting a rapid transformation of dioxygenated reac-
tants (guaiacol, catechol) into less coke-forming products (phenol)
would be highly desirable.
Hydrodeoxygenation of actual biooils has been studied with
two stages because of the thermal instability of the oil [22]. In
a rst stage, a stabilization process was carried out at low tem-
perature to eliminate reactive compositions like ketones. In a
second stage, deoxygenation of the phenolic-type molecules was
carried at higher temperatures. Using diluted model oxygenated
compound solutions for hydrodeoxygenation study will give more
precise chemical information and avoid thermal polymerization
reactions [23]. In the present study, guaiacol (methoxyphenol)
is chosen as model compound for hydrodeoxygenation because
guaiacol and substituted guaiacols constitute a relatively high con-
centration of the lignin-derived fraction (up to 0.5wt%) and these
have a high tendency to coke. Guaiacols contains two different
oxygenated functions (phenolic and methoxy groups), so are chal-
lenging molecules to completely deoxygenate. Transition metal
phosphides supportedonneutral silica are a promising class of new
hydroprocessing catalysts [24,25], and it was of interest to investi-
gatethemfor guaiacol catalytic hydrodeoxygenationincomparison
to commercial catalysts such as CoMoS/Al
2
O
3
and 5% Pd/Al
2
O
3
.
2. Experimental
2.1. Materials
The 5% Pd/Al
2
O
3
commercial catalyst was provided by BASF
Catalysts, In. and the CoMo/Al
2
O
3
hydrotreating catalyst was pro-
vided by Haldor Topse. Transition metal phosphides Ni
2
P/SiO
2
,
Fe
2
P/SiO
2
, MoP/SiO
2
, Co
2
P/SiO
2
and WP/SiO
2
were synthesized as
will be describedbelow, usinga fumedsilica EH-5support provided
by Cabot Corp. The chemicals used in the synthesis of the cata-
lysts were Ni(NO
3
)
2
6H
2
O (Alfa Aesar, 99%), Fe(NO
3
)
3
9H
2
O (Alfa
Aesar, 99%), (NH
4
)
6
Mo
7
O
24
4H
2
O(Alfa Aesar, 99%), Co(NO
3
)
2
6H
2
O
(Alfa Aesar, 99%), (NH
4
)
6
W
12
O
39
xH
2
O (Aldrich, 99%), (NH
4
)
2
HPO
4
(Aldrich, 99%). The chemicals used for the reactivity tests were
guaiacol (Alfa Aesar, 98%). The gases employed were H
2
(Airco,
Grade 5, 99.99%), He (Airco, Grade 5, 99.99%), CO (Linde Research
Grade, 99.97%), 0.5% O
2
/He (Airco, UHP Grade, 99.99%), O
2
(Airco,
UHP Grade, 99.99%), N
2
(Airco, Grade 5, 99.99%). Chemical stan-
dards for GCandmass spectrometrywerebenzene, phenol, toluene,
methoxybenzene (Alfa Aesar, 98%), cyclohexane (Alfa Aesar, 99%).
2.2. Metal phosphides synthesis
Ni
2
P/SiO
2
[2628], Fe
2
P/SiO
2
[27], MoP/SiO
2
[29,30], Co
2
P/SiO
2
[27] andWP/SiO
2
[31] werepreparedbytemperature-programmed
reduction (TPR), following procedures reported previously
[32,33]. Briey, the synthesis of the catalysts involved two
stages. First, solutions of the corresponding metal phos-
phate precursors were prepared by dissolving appropriate
amounts of Ni(NO
3
)
2
6H
2
O, Fe(NO
3
)
3
9H
2
O, (NH
4
)
6
Mo
7
O
24
4H
2
O,
Co(NO
3
)
2
6H
2
O, (NH
4
)
6
W
12
O
39
xH
2
O, with ammoniumphosphate
in distilled water, and these solutions were used to impregnate
silica by the incipient wetness method. The obtained samples were
dried and calcined at 500
Cmin
1
in owing
H
2
[1000cm
3
(NTP) min
1
g
1
]. Reduction temperatures were
568
C for Ni
2
P/SiO
2
, 680
C for Fe
2
P/SiO
2
, 680
C for Co
2
P/SiO
2
,
494
C for MoP/SiO
2,
and 527
C for WP/SiO
2
. The samples were
kept at the reduction temperature for 2h, followed by cooling to RT
under He ow [100cm
3
(NTP) min
1
], and then were passivated
at RT in a 0.5% O
2
/He for 4h. The Ni, Fe, Mo, Co, W molar loading
were all 1.6mmol g
1
(mmol per g of support), corresponding to
a weight loading of Ni
2
P of 8.6% with an initial Ni/P ratio of 1/2,
Fe
2
P of 8.3% with an initial Fe/P ratio of 1/2, MoP 12.8% with initial
Mo/P ratio of 1, Co
2
P of 8.6% with initial Co/P ratio 1, WP 19.9%
with initial W/P ratio 1.
2.3. Characterization
Irreversible CO uptake measurements were used to titrate the
surface metal atoms and to provide an estimate of the active sites
on the catalysts for the noble metals and the transition metal phos-
phides. Usually, 0.3g of a passivated sample was loaded into a
quartz reactor. Noble metal catalysts were reduced in H
2
at 325
C
for 2h while passivated transition metal phosphides were reduced
at 450
C for 2h with H
2
at 300ml (NTP) min
1
. After cooling in He,
pulses of CO in a He carrier at 43mol s
1
[65cm
3
(NTP) min
1
]
were injected at RT through a sampling valve, and the mass 28
(CO) signal was monitored with a mass spectrometer. CO uptake
was calculated by measuring the decrease in the peak areas caused
by adsorption in comparison with the area of a calibrated vol-
ume (19.5mol). Lowtemperature O
2
chemisorption was used for
CoMo/Al
2
O
3
applying the same technique. Prior to the measure-
ment the sample was sulded in a ow of 10% H
2
S/H
2
at 400
C.
Surface areas of the samples were obtained using the BET
method based on adsorption isotherms at liquid nitrogen temper-
ature, and using a value of 0.162nm
2
for the cross-sectional area of
a N
2
molecule. The measurements were performed in a volumetric
adsorptionunit (Micromeritics ASAP 2000). X-ray diffraction(XRD)
patterns of the samples were obtained with PANalytical Xpert Pro
powder diffractometer operated at 45kV and 40mA, using Cu K
monochromatized radiation (=0.154178nm).
2.4. Reactivity studies
Hydrodeoxygenation activity was measured in a packed bed
reactor at atmospheric pressure. Guaiacol was introducedbymeans
of a saturator at 25
, 44.8
and 47.5
, which
line up well with the standard pattern for Ni
2
P. The peaks are
signicantly broadened indicating that small Ni
2
P crystals were
formed. The three major peaks for cobalt phosphide line up well
with the standard Co
2
P pattern suggesting that the major phase is
Co
2
P in our synthesis, which is consistent with result reported by
Bussell that Co
2
P is obtained by using a Co/P ratio of 1 [37]. The
Fig. 1. X-ray diffraction pattern for transition metal phosphides.
308 H.Y. Zhao et al. / Applied Catalysis A: General 391 (2011) 305310
Fig. 2. Turnover frequency of guaiacol on transition metal phosphides.
Fe
2
P/SiO
2
XRD pattern shows three strong peaks which are in line
with Fe
2
P. Noticeably, the Fe
2
P/SiO
2
XRD pattern is similar to that
of Ni
2
P/SiO
2
but its peaks aremuchnarrower thanthat of Ni
2
P/SiO
2
,
indicating that the Fe
2
P particle size is larger than that of the Ni
2
P,
which is consistent with the CO chemisorption results (Table 1).
The WP/SiO
2
XRD pattern shows strong narrow peaks lining up
well with the standard WP pattern. In the case of MoP/SiO
2
, no
peaks were detected for its XRD pattern, which indicated that MoP
is well dispersed on the silica. Combined with the CO chemisorp-
tion results, it suggests that the MoP crystallites are smaller than
5nm and are not detectable by XRD.
3.3. Reactivity
3.3.1. HDO activity of transition metal phosphides
The hydroprocessing of biooils required very long contact
times to remove the oxygen content [38]. The reactivity tests
here were carried out at high contact time 20.2min. A gas phase
feed containing 0.024mol% guaiacol carried out with a mixture of
hydrogen and nitrogen at a ratio of 4 to 1 was used to test the HDO
activity of the transition metal phosphides and commercial cata-
lysts. All the catalysts showed expected responses to temperature
with higher conversions at higher temperatures and reasonable
stability over the time course of the reactions. The catalytic activity
of transition metal phosphides are compared in Fig. 2 in terms of
turnover frequency (TOF) based on sites titrated by the adsorption
of CO. These measurements were carried out starting with the
highest temperature of 300
C, the TOF of the catalysts for the HDO of guaiacol follows the
order: Ni
2
P/SiO
2
>Co
2
P/SiO
2
>Fe
2
P/SiO
2
>WP/SiO
2
>MoP/SiO
2
.
For Ni
2
P/SiO
2
in the temperature range 200300
C, the con-
version of guaiacol varied from 31% to 93%, while for Co
2
P/SiO
2
the conversion ranged from 21% to 82%. The smooth variation
of the conversion for Ni
2
P/SiO
2
and Co
2
P/SiO
2
with temperature
indicates that these catalysts were not deactivating. However with
Fe
2
P/SiO
2
, as the reaction temperature was lowered from 300 to
Table 2
Activation energy for guaiacol reaction on transition metal phosphide catalysts.
Conversion (%) Temperature (
C)
200 225 250 275 300 Ea (kJ/mol)
Ni
2
P/SiO
2
31 52 65 85 93 40
Co
2
P/SiO
2
21 39 61 77 82 52
WP/SiO
2
9 12 22 59 23
Fe
2
P/SiO
2
15 70
a
MoP/SiO
2
10 14 19 50 63
a
Not calculated because of deactivation.
275
C the
conversion of guaiacol decreased from70% to 10%, so the Fe
2
P/SiO
2
catalyst obviously underwent deactivation, probably by coking,
which is commonly observed [39]. For WP/SiO
2
in the temperature
range 200300
C.
Catalyst Contact time (min) Space velocity (h
1
) Conversion (%) Product distribution (%)
Phenol Benzene Methoxybenzene Catechol Cresol C3C5
Ni
2
P/SiO
2
20.2 1.4 80 30 60 10 0 0 0
0.339 59 19 28 4 38 0 30 0
Co
2
P/SiO
2
20.2 1.4 70 32 52 1 0 0 15
0.339 59 35 1 0 0 99 0 0
WP/SiO
2
20.2 1.4 60 100 0 0 0 0 0
0.339 59 12 12 0 0 88 0 0
carbons [4144]. This reaction sequence suggests that catechol is
the primary reaction product, which is transformed to phenol. Our
results did not show catechol as a product for HDO of guaiacol in
all cases. Thus reactivity tests with lower contact time were carried
out to identify the reaction intermediates and the possible reac-
tion pathway (Table 4). The contact time dened in the following
equation, was decreased from 20.2 to 0.339min
Contact time [min]
=
Quantity of sites [mol/g] Catalyst weight [g]
Reactant owrate [mol/min]
Three catalysts Ni
2
P/SiO
2
, Co
2
P/SiO
2
, WP/SiO
2
were chosen for
the lower contact time reactivity tests because they had the high-
est activity and showed minimal deactivation. As the contact time
decreased from 20.2 to 0.339min, the conversion of HDO guaiacol
decreased signicantly for all the catalysts, as expected. However,
the decrease of the contact time from 20.2 to 0.339min was not
accompanied by a linear decrease of the conversion. Instead, the
conversion of guaiacol at the contact time of 0.339min was higher
than expected, and this could be because the reactor operated in
integral manner (at high conversion) and there may have been
product inhibition by water.
In the case of Ni
2
P/SiO
2
a new product, cresol, was observed
and more methoxybenzene was formed while less benzene
was produced. Selectivity towards phenol was 28%, which was
almost the same as at higher contact time, but no catechol was
observed. This result might be due to a direct elimination of the
methoxy group by hydrogenolysis of the aromatic carbonoxygen
bond [17].
In the case of Co
2
P/SiO
2
, the products were 99% catechol and
only 1% phenol at lower contact time compared with 94% phe-
nol and 6% methoxybenzene at higher contact time. With WP/SiO
2
,
at lower contact time 88% catechol was observed instead of 100%
phenol. Thus, the intermediate catechol was observed for HDO of
guaiacol at lower contact time. The results indicate that the rst
bond to be broken is the bond between the oxygen and the methyl
carbon, whichis depictedinthe reactionscheme illustratedinFig. 3
which shows the possible reaction pathway on transition metal
phosphides. The scheme was adapted from results of this study as
well as work from others. Cyclohexanol was proposed as an inter-
mediate in the HDO of phenol [45], while cresol was reported in
several studies [11,40].
3.3.3. HDO activity comparison
The commercial catalysts Pd/Al
2
O
3
and CoMo/Al
2
O
3
were also
tested for the HDO of guaiacol at the lower contact time 0.339min
at 300
C.
Conversion (%) Product distribution (%)
Phenol Benzene Methoxybenzene Catechol Cresol
Ni
2
P/SiO
2
19 28 4 38 0 30
Co
2
P/SiO
2
35 1 0 0 99 0
WP/SiO
2
12 12 0 0 88 0
5% Pd/Al
2
O
3
70 0 0 0 100 0
CoMo/Al
2
O
3
1 0 0 100 0 0
[23], coking or poisoning. Thus, either coke or other heavy prod-
ucts block the active sites, or the primary product catechol adsorbs
strongly on them [46]. The main superiority of Ni
2
P/SiO
2
at low
contact time over Pd/Al
2
O
3
comes from the phosphides ability to
form phenol in a higher proportion. Then, this catalyst is able to
form products less susceptible to coke formation. Thus, Ni
2
P/SiO
2
is better thanPd/Al
2
O
3
andCoMoS/Al
2
O
3
under theconditions used
in this study.
4. Conclusions
A group of transition metal phosphides were evaluated for the
hydrodeoxygenation of guaiacol. The activity for HDO of guaiacol
follows the order: Ni
2
P>Co
2
P>Fe
2
P, WP, MoP. The major prod-
ucts for HDO of guaiacol are phenol, benzene, methoxybenzene,
with no catechol formed at higher contact time. At lower contact
time catechol is the major products for Co
2
P and WP. No catechol
was observed for HDO of guaiacol with Ni
2
P even at low contact
time. The commercial 5% Pd/Al
2
O
3
catalyst is more active than the
metal phosphides at lower contact time, but the major product is
catechol which is undesired. The commercial hydrotreating cat-
alyst CoMoS/Al
2
O
3
deactivated quickly and showed little activity
for the HDO of guaiacol at these conditions. These results indicate
that transition metal phosphides are promising catalysts for the
treatment of bio-derived feedstocks.
Acknowledgments
This workwas supportedbythe US Department of Energy, Ofce
of Basic Energy Sciences, through Grant DE-FG02-963414669,
the National Renewable Energy Laboratory through Grant DE-
FG3608GO18214, and the Japan Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry,
and Fisheries (Norinsuisansho).
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