COMPAGNONI , Matteo

Acetonitrile is increasingly used as solvent for the fine chemicals and pharmaceutical industries. Ethanol ammoxidation has been proposed as an alternative way for its production starting from a renewable source. This process leads to a complex mixture of products, which needs an optimized separation train to maximize the recovery and purity of...

The possibility to exploit diluted bioethanol streams is discussed for hydrogen production by steam reforming. An integrated unit constituted by a steam reformer, a hydrogen purification section with high- and low-temperature water gas shift, a methanator reactor and a fuel cell were simulated to achieve residential size cogeneration of 5 kW...

The possibility to use diluted bioethanol solutions is investigated. Ethanol purification and anhydrification impacts for 50-80 % of its production cost, but it is compulsory only when bioethanol is used for gasoline blending. Bioethanol can be converted to hydrogen, an increasingly important energy vector, through the steam reforming process....

The feasibility and performance of different strategies to purify a complex mixture of H2O/CH3CN/NH3/HCN from bioethanol ammoxidation are compared. Dichloromethane as entrainer is taken as a base case and compared with more sustainable molecules, such as ethyl acetate (EA), ethylene glycol (EG) and glycerol (G). The thermodynamic behavior of...

Second generation bioethanol, obtained by the fermentation of lignocellulosic biomass, which is not competitive with the food and feed field, is one of the most interesting promising biofuels, already available in semi-commercial amount. Steam reforming of bioethanol has been used here for sustainable hydrogen and syngas production. Differently...

Process simulation represents an important tool for plant design and optimization, either applied to well established or to newly developed processes. Suitable thermodynamic packages should be selected in order to properly describe the behavior of reactors and unit operations and to precisely define phase equilibria. Moreover, a detailed and...

Several N-containing organic compounds of anthropic origin, namely dyes, pesticides/herbicides and pharmaceuticals, are responsible of water pollution, due to their high solubility in water and low adsorption in soil, leading to a high mobility in the aquifer. Besides pesticides and dyes, widely recognized as water pollutants, environmental...

The development of effective methods for the abatement of some harmful pollutants from waste waters and from hydric resources is a challenging task. Nitrogen containing compounds, such as inorganic ammonia, nitrites and nitrates are harmful contaminants for drinking water, inducing acute and/or chronic diseases, especially affecting infants and...

Solar energy, along with other renewable resources, is going to play a key role in waste treatments and CO2 conversion. Photocatalytic technologies can be considered an effective solution for these purposes. This work summarises the setup of two different reactor configurations for two challenging processes: nitrate/ammonia abatement from water...

Ethylene production by ethanol dehydration has been investigated over a set of zeolites with BEA structure in acidic form (HAlBEA). The effect on Ni addition (up to 0.03g/g (3 mass%)) is explored as a means to improve ethylene selectivity limiting the formation of heavier byproducts. The reaction temperature has been varied between 300 and...

After a preliminary thermodynamic investigation, proper operating conditions have been selected to maximise ethylene productivity by ethanol dehydration and limit side products such as coke and higher olefins or oxygenates. We focused on the possibility to operate with a diluted bioethanol solution (ca. 50 wt%), which represents a promising and...

A sample of mesoporous TiO2 (MT, specific surface area = 150 m2·g−1) and two samples of MT containing 2.5 wt.% Fe were prepared by either direct synthesis doping (Fe2.5-MTd) or impregnation (Fe2.5-MTi). Commercial TiO2 (Degussa P25, specific surface area = 56 m2·g−1) was used both as a benchmark and as a support for impregnation with either 0.8...

In this work we focused on syngas production from bioethanol, achieving proper H2/CO = 2 ratio to feed the FT reaction. The catalysts were constituted by Ni supported over BEA zeolites. The Si/Al ratio was varied to assess the effect of acidity on catalyst activity, selectivity and stability. As well, the effect of Ni loading (0.6–4 wt%) was...

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The continuous increase in scientific reports concerning photocatalysis and in particular CO 2 photoreduction in recent years reveals the high degree of interest around the topic. However, the adsorption and activation mechanisms of CO 2 on TiO 2 , the most used photocatalyst, are poorly understood and investigated. Gold nanoparticles were...

Two families of Ni/TiO2catalysts were prepared for use in the steam reforming of ethanol. The catalytic performances, in terms of both H2productivity and stability towards coking and sintering, were related to the physico-chemical properties of the catalysts. The samples were prepared either by synthesis of the support by precipitation and...