Stability of acid-modified activated carbons in hot liquid water and their application to biomass hydrolysis reactions

In this work, the stability of acid-modified activated carbons is assessed in the typical biomass conversion reaction environment of 200 °C, 17 bar water. Activated carbons were modified with a variety of common liquid and gas phase methods and characterized. Acid-modified carbon catalysts were exposed to hot liquid water for 24 h and further characterized to determine the effect of this exposure on their surface chemistry. It was found that the liquid phase acidifying agents of H₂SO₄ and HNO₃ are most effective at adding acidic functionalities to the carbon. Exposure to hot liquid water was found to significantly decrease the carboxylic and sulphonic acid site concentrations on the carbons and slightly increased lactonic group concentrations. Kinetic studies indicate that these surface chemical changes occur within the first 4 h exposure to this environment, and that increased exposure temperature results in more efficient acid site removal. XPS measurements show that H₂SO₄ modification imparts partially stable sulfonic acid groups on the carbon surface while HNO₃ modification imparts nitro groups which are unstable at exposure temperatures above 150 °C. The second part of this work focuses on the application of these acid-modified activated carbon catalysts as well as a variety of mixed metal oxide catalysts to the hydrolysis of the model biomass compound cellobiose. Catalyst screening reactions indicate that amorphous silica alumina catalysts are stable and selective but only slightly active whereas silica niobia catalysts are highly active but less selective and stable. Modified activated carbon catalysts were found to have moderate activity and selectivity. An investigation into the mechanism of silica niobia deactivation was performed and apparent activation energies were found for cellobiose hydrolysis over a variety of mixed metal oxide catalysts. Finally, a novel activated carbon synthesis mechanism was developed based on knowledge of surface site stability. This carbon catalyst was found to be highly active, selective, and stable for cellobiose hydrolysis but further characterization is required to fully understand its effectiveness as a catalyst.M.S