Bio-gasoline production of used cooking palm oil catalyzed by metal supported catalyst Ni/Natural Zeolite (Ni/NZ)

Abstract

This work aims to synthesized Ni/Natural zeolite (Ni/NZ) catalyst and produces bio-gasoline (main product) and gas (byproduct) from used cooking palm oil by catalytic cracking reaction. Ni/NZ catalyst was prepared by impregnating Ni with various concentrations (0.05; 0.1; and 0.2 M) onto natural zeolite. Ni/NZ catalyst was the characterized by XRD, XRF, and Gas Sorption Analyzer (GSA) to know the specific surface area, pore distribution, and total pore volume. Characterization of product and byproduct conducted by Gas Chromatography (GC), GC-Thermal Conductivity Detector (GC-TCD), and GC-Flame Ionization Detector (GC-FID). From analysis XRD and XRF, showed successfully impregnated Ni onto natural zeolite. The best catalyst was Ni-0.1M/NZ with specific surface area, pore distribution, and total pore volume was 200.327 m2/g, 2.1884 x 10-1 Å, and 2.192 × 10-1 cm3/g, respectively. The product (bio-gasoline) resulted from catalytic cracking reaction was comparable to standard gasoline which had the same retention time of chromatogram at 3.06 min with 95.14 % area. Byproduct of this reaction were 31.94% hydrogen, 13.31% oxygen, 53.94 % nitrogen, 0.18 % CO gas, 0.24 % methane, and 0.39% CO2 gas.