The production of bio-jet fuel from palm oil derived alkanes

Abstract

Bio-jet fuel currently represents one of the solutions for reducing the emissions from aircraft without engine modifications. This study mainly focused on producing the jet fuel blendstock from glyceride-based oil through hydro-processing and hydro-cracking/isomerization. The palm oil was selected as the glyceride-based feedstock and was first converted into hydro-processed alkanes within the diesel range through hydro-processing, which has been reported in the authors’ previous work. The hydro-processed alkanes, in this paper, were turned into jet fuel range products through hydro-cracking/isomerization over the nickel-silver (NiAg) supported on silico-aluminio-phosphates (SAPO-11) catalyst. Catalyst characterizations were first performed through XRD for the fresh and used catalysts for understanding the performance of the catalyst during the reaction. The effects of the reaction parameters such as temperature, pressure, and liquid hourly space velocity (LHSV) on the carbon distributions, isomer-to-normal (I-to-N) alkane ratios and aromatics contents were investigated to find the proper conditions for producing bio-jet fuel over the NiAg/SAPO-11 catalyst.