Boreskov Institute of Catalysis of the Siberian Branch of Russian ...

PP-V-23ONE-STAGE PRODUCTION OF HIGH QUALITY DIESEL FROMSUNFLOWER OIL OVER Pd/SAPO-31A.E. Rubanov, O.V. Kikhtyanin, A.V. Toktarev and G.V. EchevskyBoreskov Institute of Catalysis SB RAS, Lavrentiev Ave., 5, Novosibirsk 630090, RussiaTel.: +7 383 3309827, e-mail: rubanov@catalysis.ruIntroductionIn last decade production of biofuels from renewable sources has become more and moreimportant and this tendency is expected to continue. There are many benefits of biofuelsincluding domestic production of fuels, decreased greenhouse gas emissions, decreaseddependence on fossil fuels, improvement of rural economies and increased national security.Nowadays the mixture of vegetable oil fatty acid methyl esters produced bytransesterification of various vegetable oils was found to be suitable to operate diesel engines.However this technology has numerous disadvantages [1]. These drawbacks can be eliminatedif the vegetable oils are converted to a paraffin-rich mixture of hydrocarbons overconventional NiMo/Al 2 O 3 and CoMo/Al 2 O 3 catalyst. However this mixture consists of n-paraffins (90-95%), it is solid and possesses unfavorable cold flow properties, so it requires tobe isomerized over suitable catalysts.This work presents results on one-stage production of a diesel hydrocarbons withimproved temperature characteristics from sunflower oil using Pd-SAPO-31 catalyst.ExperimentalSAPO-31 material was synthesized according to [2]. The calcinedsilicoaluminophosphate was Pd loaded by wet impregnation method followed by drying at120 °C for 4 h and calcining at 600 °C for 3 h in air. Hydroconversion of sunflower oil wascarried out using a fixed-bed, downflow, tubular SS reactor at P = 1.2-3.0 MPa, T = 320 –360 °C, WHSV=0.9-1.7 h –1 and H 2 /feed volume ratio = 1000-2000.Results and discussionObviously, diesel production over Pd/SAPO-31 catalyst from vegetable oil is rathercomplicated process, the following reactions take place: hydrogenation of double bonds andC-O bonds in the molecules on the metallic sites, decarboxylation, dehydration andisomerization on the acid sites. Hydrogenation and decarboxylation of sunflower oil results ina formation of n-C17 paraffin predominantly, which is isomerized on acid sites of the catalystas described in [3]. The yields of both diesel hydrocarbons and C 17 fraction as well as i-C 17 /n-C 17 ratio in dependence on reaction conditions are shown in Table 1. The diesel fraction499