Dual catalysts for fuel combustion: Development of improved chemical processes for alternative fuels

Principal Investigator: Maurice Brookhart
Department of Chemistry

As the United States' oil reserves dwindle, the nation will have to rely on synthetic petroleum fuel made from its large stores of coal. This project focuses on development of a two-step chemical process augmenting a method of making cleaner-burning alternative fuel from coal and other carbon sources by transforming some of its waste products into diesel fuel. The project is a collaboration between researchers from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey.

The Fischer-Tropsch method of making synthetic liquid fuels from coal and other carbon sources has been used since the 1920s. Today, Fischer-Tropsch fuels power most large vehicles in South Africa, and American companies have expressed interest in these fuels, which emit fewer particulates and less carbon monoxide than conventional diesel fuels. Such fuels have been termed "green diesel."

The Fischer-Tropsch reaction creates hydrocarbon compounds, alkanes, such as methane and ethane. Some of these are desirable for use as fuel, but others have low molecular weights that make them unsuitable. The process under development allows conversion of more of these Fischer-Tropsch materials to usable diesel fuels by a dual-catalyst system that boosts the weights of low molecular weight alkanes, with between four and nine carbons in the chain, up to a range appropriate for diesel fuel (10 to 19 carbons).