Biofuels of Green Diesel–Kerosene–Gasoline Production from Palm Oil: Effect of Palladium Cooperated with Second Metal on Hydrocracking Reaction

Abstract

In this work, two kinds of catalyst called monometallic Palladium (Pd) and a bimetallic of Pd-Iron (Fe) were synthesised using aluminum oxide (Al2O3) as the supported material via the wet impregnate method. A monometallic catalyst (0.5% Pd/Al2O3) named Pd cat was used as control. For the bimetallic catalyst, ratios of Pd to Fe were varied, and included 0.38% Pd–0.12% Fe (PF1), 0.25% Pd–0.25% Fe (PF2), and 0.12% Pd–0.38% Fe (PF3). The catalysts were characterised to investigate physical properties such as the surface area, pore size, porosity, and pore size distribution including their composition by Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) surface area, Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), and X-Ray Diffraction (XRD). Subsequently, all catalysts were applied for biofuels production in terms of green diesel/kerosene/gasoline from palm oil via a hydrocracking reaction. The results showed that the loading of Fe to Pd/Al2O3 could improve the active surface area, porosity, and pore diameter. Considering the catalytic efficiency for the hydrocracking reaction, the highest crude biofuel yield (94.00%) was obtained in the presence of PF3 catalyst, while Pd cat provided the highest refined biofuel yield (86.00%). The largest proportion of biofuel production was green diesel (50.00–62.02%) followed by green kerosene (31.71–43.02%) and green gasoline (6.10–8.11%), respectively. It was clearly shown that the Pd-Fe bimetallic and Pd monometallic catalysts showed potential for use as chemical catalysts in hydrocracking reactions for biofuel production.