The effect of combined H-USY and ZSM-5 catalyst in catalytic cracking of waste cooking oil to produce biofuel

Abstract

The catalytic cracking of waste cooking oil was investigated at various operating temperatures and reaction time in this paper. The purpose of this research was to study the characteristics of biofuel produced through the catalytic cracking process using the combination of catalyst H-USY and ZSM-5 with mass ratio 0.5:0.5 (w/w). The effect of combined catalyst with variation in operating temperatures (400 °C, 450 °C, 500 °C and 550 °C) and reaction times (30, 45 and 60 min) were studied on waste cooking oil after pretreatment. The ratio by mass of waste cooking oil to the amount of catalyst used is 40:1 (w/w). The process was carried out in a flow reactor under the atmospheric pressure (1 atm) and an air flow rate of 100 cc/min. The result showed that the combined catalyst is most effective in the catalytic cracking of waste cooking oil at 450 °C reaction temperature and 60 min reaction time. Under these optimal conditions, the percentage yield by mass of liquid biofuel product was 49.35 % with a product composition of 15.71 % gasoline (C6 –C12), 11.97 % diesel products (C17 −C20), and 1.09 % Heavy oil (C20 >).