TY - JOUR
T1 - Continuous Hydrothermal Decarboxylation of Fatty Acids and Their Derivatives into Liquid Hydrocarbons Using Mo/Al2O3 Catalyst
AU - Hossain, Md Zakir
AU - Chowdhury, Muhammad B.I.
AU - Jhawar, Anil Kumar
AU - Xu, William Z.
AU - Biesinger, Mark C.
AU - Charpentier, Paul A.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 American Chemical Society.
PY - 2018/6/30
Y1 - 2018/6/30
N2 - In this study, we report a single-step continuous production of straight-chain liquid hydrocarbons from oleic acid and other fatty acid derivatives of interest including castor oil, frying oil, and palm oil using Mo, MgO, and Ni on Al2O3 as catalysts in subcritical water. Straight-chain hydrocarbons were obtained via decarboxylation and hydrogenation reactions with no added hydrogen. Mo/Al2O3 catalyst was found to exhibit a higher degree of decarboxylation (92%) and liquid yield (71%) compared to the other two examined catalysts (MgO/Al2O3, Ni/Al2O3) at the maximized conditions of 375 °C, 4 h of space time, and a volume ratio of 5:1 of water to oleic acid. The obtained liquid product has a similar density (0.85 kg/m3 at 15.6 °C) and high heating value (44.7 MJ/kg) as commercial fuels including kerosene (0.78-0.82 kg/m3 and 46.2 MJ/kg), jet fuel (0.78-0.84 kg/m3 and 43.5 MJ/kg), and diesel fuel (0.80-0.96 kg/m3 and 44.8 MJ/kg). The reaction conditions including temperature, volume ratio of water-to-feed, and space time were maximized for the Mo/Al2O3 catalyst. Characterization of the spent catalysts showed that a significant amount of amorphous carbon deposited on the catalyst could be removed by simple carbon burning in air with the catalyst recycled and reused.
AB - In this study, we report a single-step continuous production of straight-chain liquid hydrocarbons from oleic acid and other fatty acid derivatives of interest including castor oil, frying oil, and palm oil using Mo, MgO, and Ni on Al2O3 as catalysts in subcritical water. Straight-chain hydrocarbons were obtained via decarboxylation and hydrogenation reactions with no added hydrogen. Mo/Al2O3 catalyst was found to exhibit a higher degree of decarboxylation (92%) and liquid yield (71%) compared to the other two examined catalysts (MgO/Al2O3, Ni/Al2O3) at the maximized conditions of 375 °C, 4 h of space time, and a volume ratio of 5:1 of water to oleic acid. The obtained liquid product has a similar density (0.85 kg/m3 at 15.6 °C) and high heating value (44.7 MJ/kg) as commercial fuels including kerosene (0.78-0.82 kg/m3 and 46.2 MJ/kg), jet fuel (0.78-0.84 kg/m3 and 43.5 MJ/kg), and diesel fuel (0.80-0.96 kg/m3 and 44.8 MJ/kg). The reaction conditions including temperature, volume ratio of water-to-feed, and space time were maximized for the Mo/Al2O3 catalyst. Characterization of the spent catalysts showed that a significant amount of amorphous carbon deposited on the catalyst could be removed by simple carbon burning in air with the catalyst recycled and reused.
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U2 - 10.1021/acsomega.8b00562
DO - 10.1021/acsomega.8b00562
M3 - Article
C2 - 31458867
AN - SCOPUS:85049264294
SN - 2470-1343
VL - 3
SP - 7046
EP - 7060
JO - ACS Omega
JF - ACS Omega
IS - 6
ER -