Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Michael T Timko

Geoffrey A Tompsett

Azadeh Zaker

Kristala Lanett Jones Prather

Kyle C Peet

Alex R Maag

Adam J E Freedman

Janelle Renee Thompson

Jason Thomas Boock

Methods are described herein for upgrading ad refining hydrocarbons, and producing at least one petrochemical product, the method including: preparing a reaction mixture by adding at least two of: a quantity of bioethanol, a quantity of hydrocarbon, and a quantity of water to a reactor containment; combining the reaction mixture with a quantity of catalyst in the reactor containment; applying reaction conditions to the reactor containment thereby generating supercritical conditions for the reaction mixture and obtaining a product mixture; and extracting at least one petrochemical product from the product mixture.

Ethanol derived petrochemicals

A petroleum refining method for upgrading petroleum products improves the efficiency and reduces the costs of upgrading oils, such as lipids, bitumen, crude oil, fracking oils, synthetic oils, and other feeds, to produce useful fuels and chemical precursor streams. Usage of a specific type of zeolite (ZSM-5) catalyst, supercritical water to control coke formation, and a specific response to phase behavior and other catalytic effects optimize the process. A prescribed set of reactor conditions employing supercritical water increases activity of the catalyst in industrial reactions.

Water-assisted zeolite upgrading of oils

Catalyst composition and parameters for catalytic hydrothermal liquefaction of biomass to bio-oil fuels target municipal solid waste (MSW) rather than lignin rich plant waste typically sought for bio-oil production. An HTL (Hydrothermal Liquefaction) reactor generates bio-fuel from municipal solid waste (MSW), including receiving, in the HTL reactor, non-lignin based waste from a municipal processing stream, and adding a solvent for extracting sugars from green waste components of the municipal processing stream. The reactor extracts a liquid from the received waste, and converts water soluble products in the liquid into oil soluble products via C&#x2014;C (carbon-to-carbon) coupling reactions. A catalyst added to the resulting aqueous stream recovers a beneficial oil product, and is optimized by tuning acid and base sites on the solid catalyst.

Hydrothermal liquefaction for biomass

Provided herein are methods of producing a bioproduct by culturing a cell in a multiphase reactor that comprises supercritical CO, near critical CO, or liquid CO.

Growing community of inventors

Arlington, MA, United States of America

Michael T Timko