An Investigation of Biofuel Production of Kapok Seed Oil Using Bimetal Supporting HZSM-5 Catalyst: Effect of Reaction Temperature by Catalytic Hydrocracking Process

Abstract

The study aims to investigate the effect of reaction temperature variations on the catalytic hydrocracking process of kapok seed oil to produce biofuel using the CuMo/HZSM-5. The CuMo/HZSM-5 used has a CuMo loading of 5% on the mass of HZSM-5 as support. The catalyst is prepared through the impregnation method, Incipient Wetness Impregnation. Characterization of catalysts was analysed by X-ray Diffraction (XRD), BET, and EDX. Based on the results of EDX analysis denoted that Cu and Mo metals can be impregnated into the HZSM-5. This was indicated by detecting 1.45 wt% Cu metal and 7.46 wt% Mo metal. The catalytic hydrocracking process converted kapok seed oil into biofuel by adding hydrogen gas using a pressurized reactor equipped with a stirrer. This process occured at temperatures of 350-400oC, 10-30 bar for 2 hours. Parameters used to investigate biofuel production, including the composition of hydrocarbons and yield of gasoline/kerosene/gas-oil range alkane. The gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) method analysed the liquid biofuel products. The best performance of CuMo/HZSM-5 was bio-kerosene (2.82%) and bio-gasoil (17.11%) for 2 hours at 400oC. The selectivity of liquid hydrocarbon products was n-paraffin (50.12%) and cycloparaffin (32.57%)