Investigation of the Heterogeneous Catalytic Transformation of Vegetable Oil/Gas Oil Blends

Abstract

The applicability of vegetable oils (tryglycerides) and their derivates is well-known for a long time. The main goal (to produce fuels from non-fossil based energy source) has been extended with the global aims of reducing the environmental pollution. Therefore the main objective now is to produce, store, transport and use fuels with lower emission levels. Until the last couple of years the vegetable oils were mostly transesterified catalytically to biodiesel to produce fuels. Because of the numerous disadvantages of biodiesel production and application the alternative chemical transformations of triglycerides were started to be studied intensively. One of the best alternative is to convert the vegetable oils (or other materials containing triglycerides) and/or their blends with gas oil to hydrocarbons rich in paraffins. These compounds can be applied in Diesel-engines directly or blended with petroleum-based gas oil. In our experimental work we examined the heterogeneous catalytic conversion of light gas oil fraction containing 10% sunflower oil on transition metal/Al2O3 catalyst. Our objective was to study the effect of the operating parameters to the yield of liquid organic products, to the yield of the fraction of gas oil boiling point range and to the product properties. Based on our results it can be concluded that with the catalytic hydrogenation of the feedstock containing 10% sunflower oil products with excellent properties can be produced with high yield. The product gas oil had ³10 mg/kg sulphur and nitrogen content, lower than 10% total aromatic content and ³-5 °C cold filter plugging point. The cetane number of the products was significantly higher than the limit (51) of the EN 590:2004 standard.