Transformation of levoglucosan over H-MCM-22 zeolite and H-MCM-41 mesoporous molecular sieve catalysts M. Ka ¨ ldstro ¨m a , N. Kumar a , T. Heikkila ¨ b , M. Tiitta c , T. Salmi a , D. Yu. Murzin a, * a Laboratory of Industrial Chemistry and Reaction Engineering, Process Chemistry Centre, A ˚ bo Akademi University, Biskopsgatan 8, FIN-20500 A ˚ bo/Turku, Finland b Laboratory of Industrial Physics, Department of Physics, University of Turku, FI-20014 Turku, Finland c Neste Oil, Technology Centre, P.O.B 310, 06101 Porvoo, Finland article info Article history: Received 19 January 2009 Received in revised form 21 January 2011 Accepted 25 January 2011 Available online 18 February 2011 Keywords: Levoglucosan Zeolites MCM-22 MCM-41 Deactivation Pyrolysis abstract Catalytic transformation of levoglucosan (1-6-anhdyro-b-D-glucopyranose) was carried out in a fixed bed reactor at 573 K over zeolite and mesoporous material catalysts. Proton forms of MCM-22-30 and MCM-41-20 catalysts were tested in the conversion, changing also the residence time. The yield of the transformation product phases was substantially influ- enced by the structures, at the same time the formation of the different compounds were dependent on the structures of the acidic zeolite catalysts. Oxygenated species were the main liquid product, consisting mainly of aldehydes and furfurals (glycolaldehyde, form- aldehyde, acetaldehyde, furfural, 5-methylfurfural, acetic acid). The formation of the liquid products was higher over MCM-41-20 than over MCM-22-30 for all the oxygenated species except acetic acid, indicating larger formation of non-condensable products over the microporous material. By increasing the residence time the formation of acetic acid increased in transformations over MCM-22, however, such increase also led to generation of more gases with both catalysts. The deactivation due to coking was more severe over the zeolite compared to the mesoporous material. It was, however, possible to successfully regenerate the spent zeolites without changing the structure. ª 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Biorefining of renewables has an important role in sustainable supplying of chemicals and energy needed for the society. The main reason for developing processes for biorefining of the renewables is the target to reduce CO 2 emissions and the application of sustainable principles. Fossil fuels are a finite energy source which will be depleted in the future, thus relying on this source of energy is not sustainable. However, the cost of processing the renewables to products is often too high making bio-based products non-competitive [1]. This is partly due to the fact that the traditional synthesis routes which were developed and optimized for more than a century for hydrocarbons to produce chemicals are not well adapted for renewables which are already deeply functionalized. The main difference between fossil fuels and biomass when looking at the chemical structure is that biomass contains much higher content of oxygen. For the maintenance of life on the planet the presence of oxygen is absolutely necessary but when the oxygenated species gets into the traditional fuel processes they can be troublesome. One benefit with biomass when comparing it with fossil fuels is that it contains very little sulfur. In the utilization of biomass, * Corresponding author. Tel.: þ358 2 215 4985. E-mail address: dmurzin@abo.fi (D.Yu. Murzin). Available at www.sciencedirect.com http://www.elsevier.com/locate/biombioe biomass and bioenergy 35 (2011) 1967 e1976 0961-9534/$ e see front matter ª 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.biombioe.2011.01.046