Catalytic Cracking of Used Palm Oil and Palm Oil Fatty Acids Mixture for the Production of Liquid Fuel: Kinetic Modeling

Abstract

Catalytic cracking of palm-oil-based fatty acids mixtures (FAM) and used palm oil (UPO) was performed over composite catalysts (HZSM-5 and MCM-41/ZSM-5). The reaction was studied in the temperature range of 673−723 K and a weight hourly space velocity of WHSV = 2.5−4.5 h-1 in a fixed-bed microreactor. A lumped parameter model was proposed to represent the catalytic cracking kinetics of FAM and UPO. The sequential strategy was used to estimate the lumped kinetic constants for three-, four- and six-lump models. The role of the catalyst in the product distribution was determined from the kinetic model that was proposed. The conversion and yield of different products predicted by the six-lump model showed good agreement with the experimental data.