A team of researchers from the IIT (Indian Institute of Technology), Mandi has used hydrochar derived from orange peels as a catalyst to convert chemicals sourced from biomass into biofuel precursors. This research will help develop biomass-based fuel to overcome the socio-political instabilities associated with dwindling petroleum reserves. The findings of the research have been published in the journal ‘Green Chemistry’.
The simplest and most low-cost catalyst that has been studied by the researchers for biomass conversion reactions is hydrochar which is typically obtained by heating the biomass waste (in this case it was orange peels) in the presence of water through hydrothermal carbonization process.
Hydrochar when used as a catalyst for biomass conversion is attractive because it is renewable and its chemical and physical structure can be altered for better catalytic efficiencies. The researchers were able to synthesize the biofuel precursors under solventless and low temperature conditions, thus the overall cost of the process decreases and also makes it environment friendly.
The researchers claimed that this is the first comparative study in which the three types of acid functionalization have been assessed. They also performed green metric calculations and temperature programmed desorption (TPD) studies to gain deeper insights into the catalytic activity of sulfonic, nitrate and phosphate functionalized hydrochar derived from orange peels.
