Vegetable Oil and Derivates Hydroprocessing Using Ni as Catalyst for the Production of Hydrocarbons

Abstract

The aviation sector has become a considerable market for biofuels since they come from renewable sources and have characteristics that help to reduce pollution. Hydrocarbons production from vegetable oils and their derivates for use in diesel and aviation kerosene are a possible alternative route to reduce fossil fuels. With that in mind, this article aimed to develop nickel catalysts supported on γ-Al2O3, Nb2O5, and zeolites to submit them to the hydroprocessing of vegetable oils and derivatives in the production of hydrocarbons. With soy ester, reactions with the Ni/Al2O3 and Ni/Nb2O5 catalyst showed selectivity of 41.2 and 16.5%, respectively, at a temperature of 300°C and a reaction time of 7 h. Under the same conditions, hydroprocessing reactions for the soybean ester using Ni/Beta and Ni/HY zeolites promoted more excellent conversion (between 80 and 99%) than oxide catalysts and selectivity between 30 and 70% for Ni/Beta and Ni/HY, correspondently. Besides, zeolite catalysts showed high conversion at the higher temperature (340°C) and time (9 h), reaching 100% conversion and hydrocarbons selectivity of 76.8 and 61.9% for zeolite Beta and HY, respectively. Changing the raw material to fatty acids made it possible to notice that zeolite catalysts showed high selectivity reaching 100%. Given the excellent performance of catalysts in hydroprocessing reactions, it is possible to consider them a promising alternative route since they can reduce the production by applying transition metal as a catalyst instead of noble metals used in the industry.