Abstract

The increasing concerns of availability of fossil resources have fueled research in the area of biomass conversion to hydrocarbons. Biooil produced by thermochemical conversion of biomass cannot be used directly for fuel applications and an upgradation step is required for the same. Hydroprocessing helps in reducing the oxygen content of the biooil, thereby improving its properties such as total acid number, viscosity, and increased thermal stability and eliminating repolymerization. Catalysts play a major role in the hydroprocessing of biooil, and several sulfided and nonsulfided or noble metal and nonnoble metal catalysts have been tested for the biooil model compounds and its simulated mixtures. Higher hydrogen consumption, catalyst deactivation by coking, and poor heat and mass transfer in the reactor are some of the challenges in this process. Several opportunities exist in the development of catalysts and processes for the hydroprocessing of biooil, which will be addressed in this chapter.