High surface area biochar from Sargassum tenerrimum as potential catalyst support for selective phenol hydrogenation.

Biochar is a biomass-derived carbon-rich, highly porous, and renewable material, which can be used as catalyst support. In this study, high surface area biochar is prepared from Sargassum tenerrimum dry seaweed (SDSW) by the chemical activation method. The effect of variations in experimental conditions (KOH amount, carbonization temperature, activation time, and heating rate) on the physicochemical properties of activated biochar was investigated. Optimum activated carbon (SDSW-ABC) has been used as catalyst support for the preparation of Ni and Co based catalyst. Prepared catalyst (NiCo/SDSW-ABC) was characterized using BET, TGA, XRD, TPD, TPR, and TEM. Catalytic activity of NiCo/SDSW-ABC was evaluated for phenol hydrogenation at a wide range of temperatures (60-140 °C), hydrogen pressures (3-7 MPa), and reaction times (2-8 h) in various polar solvents. The catalyst demonstrated selective phenol conversion (≥99.9%) to cyclohexanol (≥99.9%) at 5 MPa, 100 °C, and 4 h in isopropanol. NiCo/SDW-ABC also explored for hydrogenation of few other lignin model compounds with different functionalities to evaluate the applicability of catalyst.

Informations de copyright

Copyright © 2020 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Déclaration de conflit d'intérêts

Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.