A combined photobiological-photochemical route to C10 cycloalkane jet fuels from carbon dioxide via isopreneShow others and affiliations
2022 (English)In: Green Chemistry, ISSN 1463-9262, E-ISSN 1463-9270, Vol. 24, p. 9602-Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
The hemiterpene isoprene is a volatile C5 hydrocarbon with industrial applications. It is generated today from fossil resources, but can also be made in biological processes. We have utilized engineered photosynthetic cyanobacteria for direct, light-driven production of bio-isoprene from carbon dioxide, and show that isoprene in a subsequent photochemical step, using either near-UV or simulated or natural solar light, can be dimerized into limonene, paradiprene, and isomeric C10H16 hydrocarbons (monoterpenes) in high yields under photosensitized conditions (above 90% after 44 hours with near-UV and 61% with simulated solar light). The optimal sensitizer in our experiments is di(naphth-1-yl)methanone which we use with a loading of 0.1 mol%. It can also easily be recycled for subsequent photodimerization cycles. The isoprene dimers generated are a mixture of [2 + 2], [4 + 2] and [4 + 4] cycloadducts, and after hydrogenation this mixture is nearly ideal as a drop-in jet fuel. Importantly the photodimerization can be carried out at ambient conditions. However, the high content of hydrogenated [2 + 2] dimers in our isoprene dimer mix lowers the flash point below the threshold (38 °C); yet, these dimers can be converted thermally into [4 + 2] and [4 + 4] dimers. When hydrogenated these monoterpenoids fully satisfy the criteria for drop-in jet fuels with regard to energy density, flashpoint, kinematic viscosity, density, and freezing point. Life-cycle assessment results show a potential to produce the fuel in an environmentally sustainable way.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Royal Society of Chemistry , 2022. Vol. 24, p. 9602-
National Category
Natural Sciences
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:ri:diva-61416DOI: 10.1039/d2gc03272dScopus ID: 2-s2.0-85142426878OAI: oai:DiVA.org:ri-61416DiVA, id: diva2:1717491
Note
Funding details: 82845; Funding details: Vetenskapsrådet, VR, 2018-05973; Funding details: Energimyndigheten, 2017-00862, 2020-00879, 38334-3, 44728-1, 52576-1; Funding details: National Supercomputer Centre, Linköpings Universitet, NSC; Funding text 1: First, we are grateful to Dr Per Wiklund for helping out in establishing the contact between HO and MB, which enabled us to determine the fuel characteristics, Dr Wangchuk Rabten for design and construction of the flat tubing reactor, Dr Luke Odell for proving access to GC-MS, Prof. Johannes Messinger for access to the solar simulator, and Prof. Máté Erdélyi and Dr Ruisheng Xiong for access to their Parr hydrogenation apparatus. Financial support from the Swedish Energy Agency (grants 44728-1 and 52576-1 (HO) and 38334-3 (PiL)), Formas (grants 2017-00862 (HO) and 2020-00879 (DY)) and the NordForsk NCoE Program “NordAqua” (project number 82845) are greatly acknowledged. The computations were enabled by resources provided by the Swedish National Infrastructure for Computing (SNIC) at the National Supercomputer Center (NSC), Linköping, partially funded by the Swedish Research Council through grant agreement number 2018-05973.
2022-12-082022-12-082023-07-06Bibliographically approved