One-step hydrotreatment process for vegetable oil to produce high quality diesel-range alkanes
05 July 2012
Researchers at the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences have devised a one-step hydrotreatment process for vegetable oil that combines deoxygenation and isomerization directly to produce low cloud point, high quality diesel. A paper on their work is published in the journal ChemSusChem.
The process uses Pt/zeolite bifunctional catalysts with SAPO-11 and ZSM-22 zeolites as supports. Catalytic reactions are conducted in a fixed-bed reactor under a hydrogen atmosphere.
Over the bifunctional catalyst, 100% conversion of soybean oil is obtained at 357 °C, 4 MPa, and 1 h−1, and 80% organic liquid yield is achieved, which is close to the maximum theoretical liquid yield. In the organic products, the alkanes selectivity is 100% with an i-alkanes selectivity above 63%.
...Over the Pt/zeolite bifunctional catalyst with less strong Lewis acid sites, the reaction proceeds via the decarboxylation plus decarbonylation pathway. This one-step method provides a new strategy to produce low cloud point, high quality diesel from biomass feedstock in a more economic and attractive way.
Resources
Wang, C., Tian, Z., Wang, L., Xu, R., Liu, Q., Qu, W., Ma, H. and Wang, B. (2012), One-Step Hydrotreatment of Vegetable Oil to Produce High Quality Diesel-Range Alkanes. ChemSusChem. doi: 10.1002/cssc.201200219
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