Bio-oil is a renewable energy from biomass, however, its high content of oxygenates result in low heating values and chemical/thermal instability. One effective upgrading process is hydrotreatment using hydrodeoxygenation catalysts. We have synthesised a novel pillared clay catalyst, i.e. NiMoS/PILC and results showed that our catalysts were superior to commercial NiMoS/Al2O3. Here, we would like to understand the details of the interaction between the catalyst and the adsorbate using benzyl pheny ether as a lignin model compound. The use of a model compound of increasing complexity such as benzyl phenyl ether, compared to the previously investigated guaiacol, will reveal the factors that are crucial for binding lignin to the catalyst. INS is ideally suited for investigation of these black, highly absorbing materials, as shown by previous work on the closely related CoMo/Al2O3 catalyst.