H<sub>2</sub>-Assisted Chemical Reaction for Green-Kerosene Production

Abstract

In this work, the effect of catalysts, temperatures and different types of vegetable oil on the production of synthetic bio-fuel via a hydro-processing process called as a hydro-cracking reaction by high pressure pack bed reactor is investigated. Firstly, H2gas (95% purity) was fed into the reactor together with palm oil under two different catalysts (Pd/Al2O3and Pt/Al2O3) separately packed in the reactor. The effect of different temperatures (500°C and 530°C) was investigated and the pressure was applied and maintained at 5 MPa for both temperatures. The results revealed that, when the Pd/Al2O3catalyst was used the highest bio-fuel (approximately 90% at 500°C) after distillation can be produced. Then, palm oil and soybean oil were used to compare in the efficiency of kerosene fuel production. The reaction was operated at 500°C, 5 MPa under H2pressure on the presence of 0.5% Pd/Al2O3. The bio-fuel achieved the highest yields at about 88% and 69% in cases of palm oil and soybean oil. It was also classified as kerosene yield approximately 70% when palm oil was used as a feed stock and at about 55% for soybean oil. Some properties of the kerosene product were characterised. The viscosities were obtained at 1.75 and 1.84 mm2/s and provided 43.06 and 45.85 MJ/kg of heating combustion values when palm oil and soybean oil were used. In addition, the carbon distribution of the synthetic kerosene produced from palm oil was clearly shown to be in the range of C11-C13which is similar to kerosene fuel obtained from petroleum.