AbstractKetonization of carboxylic acids is one of the crucial reactions to produce sustainable bio-fuel and bio-chemicals from the pyrolysis oil of wood. Ketonization using different mixed solutions of carboxylic acids, furfural, and hydroxyacetone has been explored to understand the influence of co-feed reactants on the performance of ketonization of carboxylic acid over the selected CeZrOx catalyst. Furfural (7% in water) inhibited the catalytic activity for ketonization of acetic acid (20%

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... olution) with reversible blocking of active sites, but for a mixed solution of hydroxyacetone (7%) and acetic acid (20%), both reactants influenced each other, resulting in very low conversions and slow and uncompleted recovery to 50% after removing hydroacetone from the mixture. For the mixed solution (20% acetic acid + 7% furfural + 7% hydroxyacetone in water), hydroxyacetone was the most reactive compound on CeZrOx and the conversions of reactants reached below 10%, due to the inhibition of co-existing carbonyl components. This work provides guidance for ketonization of carboxylic acids in the aqueous-phase pyrolysis oil.