Catalytic deoxygenation of stearic acid and waste cooking oil over Pd/ SBA-15 for obtaining hydrocarbons with potential as renewable liquid fuels

摘要

It has been found that catalytic deoxygenation of triglycerides is a viable pathway for obtaining renewable liquid fuels to contribute to meet the global energy demand. In this study, SBA-15 mesoporous silica was synthesized in a pure form and modified with mesitylene (TMB) as a swelling molecule (SBA15-TMB). Catalysts with 0.5, 1.5 and 3.0 wt% Pd were synthesized and tested by deoxygenation of stearic acid (SA), obtaining initial conversions of 68-98% that decreased to 36-73% after 6 h time-on-stream. The most abundant product was n-heptadecane, with a selectivity of 90%. The most active catalyst evaluated with SA was 3.0 wt% Pd over unmodified SBA-15 (30Pd/SBA-15). Subsequently, fresh and regenerated 30Pd/SBA-15 catalysts were tested with waste cooking oil (WCO) feed, obtaining conversions of 74 and 72%, respectively, but the fresh catalyst allowed a better oxygen removal (91%. Additionally, commercial Pd(10wt %)/C catalyst was evaluated, obtaining results comparable to those for the regenerated 30Pd/SBA-15 catalyst. The main WCO reaction product for all catalysts was a diesel fraction (C-12-C-21), and the quality of the products was not very different, following the order: Pd(10wt %)/C > 3.0Pd/SBA-15-regenerated > 3.0Pd/SBA-15-fresh. The results obtained indicate that shynthetized catalysts of this study are promising for obtaining renewable diesel from low-cost feeds while using low hydrogen consumption.