Performance of NiMo-Al2O3 catalyst in biokerosene production via hydrocracking of dirty palm oil

Abstract

Energy consumption in the transportation sector steadily rises each year, requiring an effective solution to meet the demands present. In this study, biokerosene was produced through the hydrocracking process using NiMo-Al2O3 as a catalyst and dirty palm oil as raw material. The synthesized catalyst was characterized by Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), while the biofuel product which was analyzed by Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (GCMS). The results showed that in the hydrocracking process, the decarboxylation and decarbonylation reactions were the dominant pathways. The conversion of biokerosene increased with increasing catalyst concentration, temperature, and reaction time. The highest biokerosene yield was found to be 56.38% with a catalyst concentration of 0.01 g-catalyst/g-oil, 3 h reaction time and 450oC reaction temperature. The optimum catalyst concentration was 0.04 g-catalyst/g-oil, while the optimum temperature was 550oC and the optimum reaction time was 3 h.